The Shatterdome
by E.V.A.Graebel
Summary: The world survived the first Breach, but may not survive the second. Ranger O'Donnell must fix a pilot-killing jaeger, the PPDC must rebuild a shattered jaeger program, and threats will come from unexpected places. OCs, slightly AU, spoilers for movie.
1. Chapter 1: Broken (revised)

**Year 2025**

**Shatterdome, Hong Kong Bay**

**Bay 13 Decomissioned Storage**

* * *

"For fuck's sake!" The shout came from within the coiled splay of white and grey tubing. The coils reached almost twenty feet high and spilled out in a widening pyramid. "Get the crane in here. The neural loops are fine, it's got to be another interface issue."

Ygor sprinted the three flights of stairs and slid into the crane cockpit. It was a deft job to maneuver the end of the two hundred pound pick into the writhing mass of Jaeger muscle fibers. One slip and he would crush the pilot standing in the middle of it. He keyed the loudspeaker on as he started to insert the pick. "Come on, sweetie. Hook me up."

There was a sudden shift in the crane's load as the tip caught. He shifted the crane's arm and it lifted the weight of muscle fibers towards the Jaeger that loomed above it. Foxtrot Angel was naked of her brilliant graphene-titanium shell that normally cloaked her. The shell was painted a deep pumpkin color over tenné shaded joints - a color choice predicated on the sleek fox that crawled down her breastplate and marked every technician and member of her crew. Without her skin the Jaeger looked like a humanoid giant with giant ball bearings, engine mounts, and ropey polymer nanocomposite muscle fibers that replaced the standard mechanical muscle of the Mark I-V Jaegers. The crane lifted them and they fell into place as sleek long fibers. The shiny white texture came from production methods that printed each muscle in tiny flexible chunks giving it an organic appearance and better feedback ratios for governing movement.

The crane continued past Foxtrot's abdomen, almost three and a half stories high, and with a practiced twist he reinserted the neural loops back into the left elbow socket. Foxtrot stood impassively throughout the procedure, the conn-pod in her head was mounted but pilotless. Its remaining pilot stood on the ground staring up at the crane and at her malfunctioning Jaeger. From the crane operator's position five floors up, Ygor could barely make out her features as they turned up to the ceiling where an alert began to shine.

"Mags," he started but hadn't turned the speaker on and she ran for the heavy blast doors as Ygor sat in the crane and stared at Foxtrot.

She was the sole Mark VI Jaeger and stood at 75 meters tall and almost 1700 tons weight. But she was not famed for the unique next generation technology that gave her increased speed, agility, and range of motion. She was infamous for her ability to burn pilots to a husk with a neural load that could not be managed. Foxtrot Alpha was an unusable Jaeger in the face of increasing Kaiju attacks. Every moment that she stood idle was another failure of their program.

Ygor's small team and Margret continued to work on her but even their bay had been forgotten. Marshall Pentecost regularly eliminated their electricity rationing forcing them to survive on less and less.

Ygor put his head in his hands as a construction tech whistled from his harness hanging down from the ceiling. Chip had rappelled the 100 meters to Foxtrot's shoulder and was reconnecting the interior shoulder connections. Instead of shouting the conversation over the speaker he switched to the quieter interpersonal comm hooked around his ear and jawbone.

"Yeah?"

"We gonna do anymore work today?"

"Not without a pilot we ain't."

"Heard that the kaiju is a big one."

"Aren't they all?" Ygor kicked the crane's control panel and stared up at Foxtrot. "Goddamn bitch, you should be out there."

"We could stop wasting on time on her and start building another Mark V. At least that tech works." Chip's reply surprised him into realizing he'd left the comm open.

Ygor didn't know what to say. Marshall Pentecost still allowed them some funding and giving up on her hurt. The honest answer was that no on thought the Mark VI was functional, not when the world had given up the entire program. The world had given up on all the jaegers as they'd started to fall to the new and stronger kaiju coming through the Breach.

"Finish the reconnection and diagnostics. Then tell the boys to take the night off."

"Roger that." Chip waved happily from Foxtrot's shoulder but Ygor wasn't paying any attention to him.

His eyes caught on the flashing light that indicated a kaiju attack and he knew that for all of his heartache, Mags was feeling it worse. Foxtrot was the pilot killer, but every Ranger in the base blamed it on Margret. She's survived. Even if they managed to fix Foxtrot, no one wanted to ride with a Jonah and be the next person to die. Foxtrot had killed four pilots and the stupid bitch still ran green on every test they gave her.

* * *

By the time she ran the mile and a half of corridor between Foxtrot's bay and the main Jaeger hub, Margret was reminded again of how much she hated the hustle and press of personnel assigned to the Shatterdome. There was something peaceful and meditative about the silence that surrounded Foxtrot. Ygor's crew was a hard-drinking, rough bunch of Jaeger mechanics too onery and combative to run on regular crews. Their out-size personalities rang loudly but didn't make much dent in the huge shell of their bay.

It was designed to hold five Jaegers. Empty now except for Foxtrot. Margret could still picture them: Beastmaster Bravo, Shrike Fire, Walleye Crew, Sol Nine, and Cherno Charlie.

She'd been fresh out of Tango Caribe's decommissioning in 2019 and Cherno Charlie was going into retirement as well. The space vacated by Charlie was still hers.

They were all gone now. Only Cherno Charlie's team was living but that was due to their age. Commander Ironside and Colonel Nyugen were in their 60s and Cherno Charlie a museum relic.

As she slowed and entered the LOCCENT, men and women glanced up at her. Every face maintained a blank composure but she could still feel the weight of their eyes. Towards the front of the room Marshall Pentecost watched the camera feeds coming in from Sydney. He cut an imposing figure with his dark blue uniform fitted impeccably to his large frame and hair that never seemed to grow out of the high and tight haircut. He did not turn as she reached his side. She was the first but the Wei triplets; Cheung, Hu and Jin, would be close behind her.

Tendo Choi gave her a chagrined smile from his station next to Pentecost.

They watched the kaiju begin to breach the waters, crushing its way through the remnants of the Great Barrier Reef. The reef was a fossilized shell after being kaiju blue'd in 2018. The kaiju, Margret saw the name assigned on Tendo's console: Mutavore. It bellowed threateningly at the helicopters buzzing around its head and kept on course towards the anti-Kaiju wall. The Sydney Wall was immense at 500 feet. The Aussies were too close to the breach to not be concerned, construction had finished almost three months earlier. Mutavore pressed the large hooked nose on its head up against the stone work.

"It's got to hold." Someone whispered from behind her but Margret ignored them. The images were almost ten minutes out of sync.

"Two Jaeger teams responded, Saber Echo and Vulcan Specter." Tendo got faster updates through his counterparts. "Saber has taken heavy damage but is still in the fight. Vulcan is…she's struggling with Mutavore. It outclasses her by over 150 tons."

New video footage started to come through and none of it was good. Mutavore was heavier than both Jaegers and outclassed them in fighting style as well, anticipating their attacks and delivering damaging punishment.

"Is Striker Eureka on-line?" Pentecost said darkly.

Tendo's hands ran across the keyboard. "They were outside the Dome when the call came. There is a military chopper bringing them back to base now, but they've still got transport rigging to uninstall from Eureka. It will be at least an hour 'til she can respond."

"An hour." Pentecost didn't need to repeat the timing but he did.

"They could have been en route." Margret said to him. "At least Sydney has a chance. Three jaegers are more than none."

"I know." The Marshall turned to glance at her and seemed to really see her for the first time in a long time. "Any progress?"

She wanted to look away or at least down at the tips of her boots. Looking away was a weakness so she straightened her back. She wore faded blue coveralls with the imprint of a crouching fox with its elongate tail curved overhead like a scorpion. She met his gaze evenly. "I need a co-pilot."

"So no progress."

"No," she said softly and her eyes tightened with anger.

The kaiju ignored the shaken jaegers and butted against the Wall again to test its strength. The screens couldn't show the weight of impact, but Margret remembered what it felt it to take the blow of Okami-oni.

_The wolf-like Jaeger leapt onto Foxtrot clearing the three hundred yards in a single bound. They'd rocked back in the Conn-pod, but the drift held. She could feel a weird fluttering from Yoshi as he wrestled the kaiju back. His memories were like butterfly wings at the edges of her vision. Sometimes one would flicker and try to catch her attention but she ignored them, the drift was full of rabbits. Yoshi grunted as Foxtrot took another blow. He was just over six feet tall and with a thick head of hair and beard that made him look larger but their drift had always been strong._

_He sensed her concern and grinned at her from his pilot harness, black eyes so very alive. They took the weight of Okami-oni and twisted into a standard Tai Otoshi throw that tossed the reeking weight of the kaiju over them and into the twisted hulk of a cargo ship run aground. The shipping containers lay scattered everywhere and Margret could see the fluttering cloth of shirts spilling out and getting caught by the wind of the throw as they twisted ._

_Foxtrot lifted Okami-oni's rear leg and stomped down to find and break the joint. The kaiju shrieked as the titanium weight of Foxtrot's stomp shook it down through the earth but didn't seem to shatter the joint like it would have in a mammal._

_The drift pulled on her again. It wasn't supposed to do that. She and Yoshi were highly compatible but instead of being a seamless bond, it felt like an effort to maintain the connection. It was supposed to be sub-conscious. A connection allowing their bodies to match movements and work as one, but it to be completely conscious of it wasn't how the tech worked, it wasn't how they worked. She and Yoshi had been a team for three years._

_The image of him the first time they met rolled out of the drift. The look in his eyes._

_Margret gasped as Okami-oni snarled and twisted in their grasp, it bit at knee level and then again at the ankle tearing a chunk of metal and muscle fibers out of Foxtrot's right ankle._

_Yoshi grunted deeply and Margret felt the drift shake as though an earthquake hit them. Alarms flashed as Foxtrot's ankle crumpled and she went to one knee in the sand. Okami-oni lunged again at her other ankle and Margret swung her left hand up - dragging Yoshi with her in the drift - and hooked her fingers, Foxtrot's fingers, through the high and flaring nostrils. She twisted so that the kaiju felt the awful torque of flesh. She drew back and hammered down on its head. The impact shook them again._

_Pentecost's voice was coming over the comm. "Nagata, you're losing the handshake."_

_"Back-up inbound." Sasha Kaidonovsky's voice overrode his in her heavily accented Russian."Cherno Alpha is 1 minute out."_

_"Margret." Yoshi voice's sounded fragile._

_He never sounded fragile. Quiet, Yoshi had always been quiet, too quiet. She knew why from the drift, Yoshi's father had valued silence and hard work, spending his life in the fields until K-day. The land was gone but Yoshi couldn't get rid of the feeling of working in the quiet. The sun beat down on them as they tended the terraced garden. He didn't need speech to know that his father was there, the sensation of being together was stronger than words could be. It was that way with Margret in the drift._

_But this time he wasn't there._

_She turned away from the screen even as Okami-oni withdrew for another attack._

_"There is still some servor function in the ankle." Ygor's voice was in her ear._

_Too many voices, too many outside distractions and Yoshi slipped further away from her. She reached again for him, refusing to let go. His memories bombarded her: trains - the city - watching helplessly at the crab-like Onibaba chewed through Tokyo - even as he trained in the Jaeger Academy to defend it. Meeting her._

_Margret could see herself through his eyes even as she let Foxtrot drop to shikko and purposefully knee-walked towards Okami-oni. It was a startling change in approach and the kaiju did not attack as it backed away from them. Somewhere Cherno Alpha was still counting down its arrival._

_She unsheathed her left gauntlet and lashed out as the kaiju attacked the right. It knew somehow that Foxtrot was injured and not just by the damage to the ankle. Margret tried to engage the right hand, tried to will Yoshi to fight. Okami-oni lunged. Foxtrot twisted out of the way but not before the large paw scraped across her breastplate leaving long claw marks and torn metal where it dug through._

_Yoshi remembered thinking that Margret was irritating. How could they let her train to be a Jaeger pilot with those scars? And then, their first sparring session on the floor, when he realized it didn't matter._

_The ground rumbled under them with Cherno Alpha's lumbering approach and finally Margret couldn't hold herself away from Yoshi's memories. She remembered their first handshake, their first fight out of the drift, the first time for everything._

_They slipped again into another memory. "You have me in the drift." Yoshi said in rapid Japanese._

_"I still need to hear it." Margret refused to answer him in Japanese. Her accent was still faint despite her attempts to eradicate it. "I know what we have with Foxtrot, but we still have lives outside of here." _

_"Our duty is to be Rangers first."_

_She challenged him to answer differently but he would not. He did not say anything in the memory of the memory._

_Cherno Alpha took on Okami-oni with a thundering punch to the solar plexus. Foxtrot Alpha knelt in the sand, her orange metallic skull tilted downward even as Yoshi's heartbeat started to falter on the screen._

_He said the words out-loud in the Conn-pod even as blood ran from his nose and his eyes. "Ai shiteru, Margret. Ai shiteru." And he shoved her out of the drift, cut her off from his feelings, his emotions, and she screamed. Foxtrot remained in place unaware as Cherno Alpha beat Okami-Oni into pulp that little resembled a kaiju much less a wolf._

_Inside, Margret made frantic attempts to revive Yoshi until both of them were covered in his blood and he was still dead._

She put a hand on Tendo's chair to steady herself and knew that Pentecost noticed. Back-up pilots were sent to Foxtrot Alpha while Margret tried to convince the psych team to clear her. Ygor's team cleared Foxtrot of a system malfunction but Cho Li and Han Lui Do hadn't gotten Foxtrot out of the Shatterdome before the neural feedback blew out their synapses.

Not that Foxtrot would have been close enough to help Vulcan Specter and Echo Saber. There was a visible breath of escaping atmosphere as Mutavore rolled over Vulcan and crushed the jaeger's Conn-pod. The jaeger did not move after that as the water of the surf rolled around it.

Echo tried one last all-out assault but Mutavore picked up the jaeger like it was a toy and began to slam it into the ground over and over again. Life signs persisted for a few minutes and then went out. Finally assured of both jaegers' destruction, it left the crumpled metal remains and headed back towards the Wall.

Margret forced herself to watch as Mutavore decided that the Wall had no exterior defenses and began a slow lumbering run. It broke through almost immediately as its weight worked as its own battering ram and used its sheer weighted momentum to annihilate Sydney's last defense. There was a sharp intake of breath as it broke through. Concrete and steel rebar fell inwards like they were made of Linkin Logs. Mutavore seemed to barely notice as it lumbered towards the Sydney Opera House.

"Striker is now in-bound. Hansens are on-board."

"Tell them to get in there." The Marshall took a single step back. "We know where Raleigh Beckett is."

"Ah," She knew why the Marshall wanted Beckett. There was a legend about pilots who could continue fighting in their jaegers solo, there were only two and Pentecost was the first one, Beckett the second. He had survived the event that Yoshi tried to shield her from, feeling his co-pilot die.

"I want you to go to Australia and give them orders. Striker Eureka is now reassigned to the Hong Kong Shatterdome."

"They haven't beaten Mutavore yet."

"But they will," the Marshall said. "Herc is an excellent pilot. He'll take care of it."

"Where is Beckett?" Margret asked. "How do you know he'll come back to the PPDC?"

"Walk with me."

Margret did as she was told. They left the LOCCENT behind them and walked swiftly towards the flight bay. Marshall Stacker Pentecost was a hero to everyone in the PPDC, he'd fought the first missions in Mark Is and then in Mark IIs when no one knew anything about Jaegers except that they were unbelievably hard to kill. Marshall for almost ten years, he'd codified the Ranger program into something that turned out Jaeger pilots. And for eight of those ten years, they'd been winning. The slow side into defeat had started just before development of the Mark VI, but the failure build jaegers faster had doomed their attempts to keep up with increasing kajiu attacks.

"I need Mako to stay here and finish up on pilot selection and Gipsy's rebuild. I want you to go get the Hansens."

"I could, sir, but I'd like to try another boot-up run on Foxtrot."

"You mean a solo run."

Margret nodded.

"No, I've had Gottlieb run the math at least four times. Foxtrot is running too hot for two pilots. If we had more time and money we might run a third rig into the system, but I don't have the time for that. And I can't let you have Beckett, I need him in Gipsy." Pentecost stopped short of the elevator doors and turned to face her. "And I have a day job, even if we could teach an old dog your jaeger's tricks. As much as I need Foxtrot, I can't spare any resources for you. I have to focus on the four working models we have left. I'm sorry."

"So why do I have to go get the Hansens?" Margret tried not to let the devastation of his words show. "Am I being demoted to the desk?"

"Not yet." His persona softened just the tiniest bit but a heartbeat later he was just as merciless. "You get to go be the hard-ass. I just promoted you to Acting Field Marshall. Australia is going to try to keep Striker and I want her here."

"Herc wouldn't disobey your orders."

"He would under duress. You are to ensure that that does not happen." Pentecost glanced over her uniform. "Get changed and get to your bird. Tendo has given you Field Marshall access. You can read over the plan on the flight down. You do not reveal more than absolutely necessary to the Prime Minister but you get Striker Eureka on the transport ship tonight."


	2. Chapter 2: Burned (revised)

The crew quarters of the Hong Kong Shatterdome were built with one purpose in mind – survive a full-scale kaiju attack.

Jeb Harrelson had designed the Shatterdomes to withstand and support jaeger operations but he had anticipated smarter opponents. The entire facility could be locked down like a submarine with watertight seals on all crew quarters and heavy pressure doors that would shut down during emergency operations. Oxygen bubbles and emergency supplies would keep personnel alive for 48 hours. The integrity of the Shatterdome had yet to be tested but it had the same warmth as a nuclear submarine. It was steel, it was functional, and it might save their lives one day.

Margret quartered near her crew on the 3rd floor, flush against the walls to the interior core. Almost fifty feet of concrete and fifteen floors insulated them but sometimes she could press her cheek against the wall and feel the humming from the base's reactor. The radiation tags remained staunchly unchanged so she rarely thought about her proximity to it. The proximity to the Field Marshall laurels in her pocket was something different. Since Marshall Pentecost had left them, she still couldn't process that they were going on her collar.

She was spinning the airlock on her door when she heard a familiar cadenced step from behind her. Gottlieb was limping towards her, one hand on his cane and the other clutching a scattered stack of papers against his tablet. She smiled and raised a hand in welcome even as he pursed his thin lips.

"Ms. O'Donnell."

"Margret." She reminded him as her door opened and she started to step inside.

"I need to speak with you about the data I've been evaluating. I asked Marshall Pentecost…"

"Come in."

He limped up after her and spent a long second debating whether to close the door until Margret reached past him and did it for him.

"Talk fast, Doctor, I'm supposed to be on a bird in five minutes. I know you grounded Foxtrot again, the Marshall told me."

"I've…" he stammered. "I meant to tell you myself. I'm reading energy in excess of 72 kilo-Noughts. That much energy stimulating the nervous system would kill you in a solo rig and is still higher than the proscribed pilot maximum of 40 kilo-Noughts."

He shuffled sideways and cleared his throat as she stepped behind a changing screen and began to toss out her boots and coveralls.

Margret glanced out, saw his nervousness, and grinned at him. Her dark hair was loose of its braid and she waved a hand at the wardrobe. "Pass me my blues. Come on, Doctor, you have something to say and I have somewhere I need to be. We're going to have to be efficient with our time."

"I could wait outside." But he handed her the hangar with her dress blues on them. Despite the Ranger calls to make something more striking, she always though the Ranger blues looked about as formal as a bus driver's uniform, back when bus driver's still wore them.

"Talk." She ordered and slid the button-up shirt over the long lines of scarring on her left arm and down across her chest and stomach. Despite the mirror she could feel it on her back as well where the sensitive skin caught at the material of her bra. She paused and considered the length of her arm. The skin was reddened and slightly warped but smoother than many burn victims.

When the British amphibious assault vessel HMS Albion had gone down under the kaiju Shrike, fire had turned the ship and its refugees into a mass of screaming chaos.

"Dr. Gottlieb?"

He cleared his throat and began again. "I know that you wanted better news."

"Than grounding my jaeger? Yes, I'd hoped for something more useful."

"I didn't just ground your jaeger."

The words sent a chill down her back. "What?"

"I ran your most recent brain scans back through the database. I should have looked at the numbers before but you were so insistent that you were fine."

Margret stepped out from behind the screen. Her shirt was untucked and her feet were barefoot but Gottlieb stared as though he'd expected her to come out naked.

"I'm fine."

"You have neural scarring. It's not noticeable in your day-to-day activities, but I think…"

"Is this why Pentecost made me an Acting Field Marshal? Because you're grounding me?" Her voice broke.

Herman nodded. "When I gave Dr. Cheng your numbers, he pulled you from the active roster. I'm sorry."

The air went out of her and she barely made it to her desk chair to sit. Herman took two slow steps towards her and put his hand on her shoulder. It was the most contact they'd had in five years. She could feel his awkwardness at human contact and she noticed, almost hysterically, that he'd gotten another awful haircut.

"Grounded."

"I thought that you had survived Yoshi Nagata's death without injury. And when the Marshall severed your link before Molly Tanner died, you should have been okay. But…" he took another step towards her. "I was wrong. Numbers are not wrong, or rarely anyway."

"We will…." Margret ran her options through her head over and over again. The thought of never setting foot in Foxtrot made her want to vomit. What was even worse was the certainty that Herman was trying, in his own way, to do something heroic. "…talk when I return from Australia."

"The numbers don't lie."

"No," she stood up and faced him. He had a few inches on her but his normal posture was always slightly stooped so she found herself feeling like they were on the same level. "But life isn't about numbers. Not in the way that you see them."

She finished dressing and turned to her mirror to brush and braid her hair back into a tight tail. She could see Herman standing behind her, staring at her, as she twisted and pinned the strands of hair into a sleek and functional knot. The formal dress made her look older than her thirty-two years, the reddened skin around her eyes didn't help.

"Ms. O'Donnell. Margret." Herman said to her. "I'm trying to protect you. Foxtrot Alpha may not kill you but she still has the power to damage you beyond recognition. Why would you willingly put yourself in harm's way knowing that?"

She focused her eyes on him and took the tablet that had always been meant for her.

"The next time you want to protect me, Herman. Buy me some chocolate instead. It will get you a lot closer to getting laid than your current plan."

He stuttered as she pushed past him and spun her door open but Margret was already hurrying towards the hangar bay. She slipped the comm. back into her ear as she hurried.

"Tendo, can you link me to B13?"

"Can do, Field Marshall." Tendo's voice sounded vaguely amused in her ear as she jogged past a group of sanitation workers preparing to open a sewer pipe on the floor.

"Really? Gotta rub it in, don't you?"

"You shoulda seen Gottlieb telling Pentecost. That man," Tendo's voice faded out for a second as she stepped into the elevator. "Has a crush on you."

"B13, please."

"I hear you ignoring me. No one is answering in the bay, do you want me to leave a message?"

She laughed and the men and women around her glanced over but didn't say anything. "Link me to his quarters then."

"Done." Tendo told her and Margret thought of all the ways that she could explain what had happened to Ygor but none of them seemed adequate.

"Ygor," she said into her comm. despite those listening in as the elevator breached on the helicopter deck. "The Marshall sent me on an errand. Pull the Conn-pod from Foxtrot. We're out of time. We have to do something or she'll never fight again."


	3. Chapter 3: Down Under (revised)

**+3.5 hours Kaiju Event**

* * *

"Ma'am, we have landing clearance."

Margret shook herself awake, rubbed her eyes and stretched. The Knightsbridge rocket shot them parabolically into near-Earth orbit and then let the plane drop back down through the layers of atmosphere close to the correct location. Despite pouring through Herman's data and the Marshall's simple plan she'd still managed to fall asleep. It was something about the rapid ascent and descent that affected most people.

The Marshall still had significant pull to get them berths on the Knightsbridge. Margret could see the edge of the horizon and the boundary between earth and space even as they dropped too deep into the atmosphere for her to see it anymore.

"Coffee?" She said to the co-pilot just in front of her and he passed the flask her direction. "Coffee?" She checked again.

"Straight up," he said with a smirk. "We're not airline hacks you know."

"No offense meant."

"None taken, Field Marshall. It sounds like there is a car to take you to the Sydney Shatterdome to meet with the Prime Minister."

Margret picked up the tablet and reactivated it.

Twenty thousand injured: unconfirmed. Sixty-eight hundred dead: unconfirmed. Four jaeger pilots dead: confirmed. Crews on ground harvesting the kaiju: ongoing. No estimates for infrastructure loss. And the pictures of the destroyed jaegers looked worse than when she'd seen them being destroyed. Mutavore was as big and ugly as she imagined, even with its flesh adorned with scaffolding, as kaiju strippers began the process of carving the creature into its respective bits and pieces.

"_Go stróice an diabhal thú_," she whispered.

"Sorry?" The co-pilot said and turned with his full face visor pointed toward her. "You weren't clear."

"Its something my grandfather used to say."

"What's it mean?" He asked but she didn't answer as the ground came closer. The Knightbridge blanked once over the open ocean and cut inland over the height of the Wall.

They soared down over the landing field. Smoke still rising over Sydney. The Opera House lay in pieces where Mutavore had gone through the center of the structure and although she hadn't been a practicing Catholic since childhood she crossed herself at the destruction. The co-pilot noticed and nodded.

"So much for being unsinkable."

The landing was rough. The tires caught and slid on the ash and particulate covering the runway but they managed to slow and coast to a stop. The pace car came to them on the runway and Margret gathered her beret and tablet into her hands.

"Gentlemen, I'd prefer to have a two-hour turn-around. Is that possible?"

"Possible, ma'am, but a four hour window is safer."

Margret checked her watch. It was already six pm. She'd lost two hours to the changing time zones and another three for flight time. Even if they could get Striker Eureka rigged and on the boat, they'd still outpace the jaeger in their return home and she knew how the Hansens would feel about that. They'd rather take the slower transport and stay within sight of her.

"Secure your bird, and file a flight plan for 0600. Expect three heavy."

She unsealed the door and stepped out into the air. The heavy burden of file and chemicals burning saturated the atmosphere. It made her queasy to smell it and feel the still imminent threat of kaiju spore. Kaiju blue had a smell, some said like a mixture of ammonia and blue curacao, which meant that the sweetness felt tempting to inhale like drinking antifreeze was to cats. She snugged on the P95 filter and moved down the steps and to the waiting car.

Hercules Hanson stepped out to greet her. He was wearing faded khakis and a dark t-shirt under a Striker crew leather jacket. He removed the aviator sunglasses and extended a hand to her as she reached him.

"It's been a while, Margret. Congratulations on Field Marshall."

"Three and a half years, Mr. Hansen."

"It's Herc, you know that."

Margret cocked one eyebrow at him and shook his hand with a firm grip. "You're not sensitive?"

"Can't smell a thing. And its still Herc."

"This is official business, Mr. Hansen. I'm afraid my orders are to keep this professional." She paused and gestured to the smoking remnants in the distance. "Nice kill."

"Thank you."

They paused in a growing awkward silence until he spoke. "How is Foxtrot?"

"She's a killer, Mr. Hansen, just like she always was."

Margret let the landscape silence any further conversation. The car barreled through downtown where bulldozers were already at work. Heavy construction rigs were opening streets and digging out survivors. Sydney hadn't evacuated its population so the emergency responders had to deal with the destruction and the evacuees. Police and Army Reservists were directing the fleeing population but the numbers swelled by the second. A military escort joined them as the crowds got deeper to force a path. It was easier to focus on the evacuation than at Herc Hansen who seemed completely comfortable with the silence as they passed through Sydney and headed south of the ruined Opera House.

"So why did you accept the promotion?" He asked as they pulled into the gated driveway of the Governor's House. "I figured they'd have to strait jacket you to keep you out of a jaeger. Hell, you could…"

"Pentecost told me to." Margret interrupted. "He needs you in Hong Kong and doesn't trust the Prime Minister to send you."

"It will leave Australia undefended."

She felt the car roll to a stop but the mass of vehicles was so thick that she almost missed seeing the castle-like structure behind it all. The entire surviving government of Australia had relocated from their destroyed office buildings to this structure, bringing with them emergency service personnel and their families. The military had its own tented compounds already set up and bristling with communications gear.

Margret didn't answer as they got out of the car. She looked across the hood to Herc and caught his blue eyes on hers. The sensation was unnerving and not just for her history in Foxtrot. It was an embarrassing position to be in and she didn't like the sense of empowerment it gave him to have seen her vulnerable.

"Shall we?" She asked and tried to press the memories away.

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

The main hall was chaotic and angry. Men and women rushed back and forth on missions. For every uniform Margret saw, there were three other suits, many of them injured and dusty from the building collapses. Huge TV screens were rolling feed from every Australian news agency brave enough to venture into the heart of the devastation. Even those who were busy interviewing the evacuees seemed to have a digital space. Margret wondered vaguely if they were already running polling damage on the Prime Minister as his much-lauded Wall turned out to be made of sticks and stones.

Herc continued onward. Margret paused as she saw interview footage of Chuck and Herc coming out of Striker Eureka time stamped just after Mutavore's defeat. Chuck engaged with the journalist, "The failure of the jaeger program wasn't caused by the jaegers, it was caused by mediocre pilots. Striker Eureka has ten confirmed kills. That should tell you everything you need to know." She listened for another second but it was more of a recap of the footage of Striker taking on Mutavore from local video feeds.

"He's a bit opinionated." The sentence was apologetic.

"He pilots the only Mark V out of the surviving four jaegers in the program. It sets you up for that kind of thinking."

"Five jaegers." Herc corrected her.

She motioned for him to lead the way again. They walked in silence for several seconds and wove their way through grim-faced soldiers who fought traditional wars and found themselves unmanned before the wrath of the kaiju. They reached a huge set of double-doors that looked like they would lead into some fairytale ballroom. The intake of her breath was audible as she centered herself.

The doors swung open at her touch and Field Marshall O'Donnell was the person who strode across the floor with Ranger Hansen on her heels. She was 5'7", not a statuesque woman like Sasha Kaidonovsky, but she had Pentecost's example of how to exert command presence. Heads rose at her approach and several military attaches noticeably checked their own postures. Although she didn't turn to look at him, her field of vision caught Chuck Hansen as leaned over a set of maps with several other men while his bulldog Max waited at his feet.

"Prime Minister, I wish we'd met under different circumstances." Margret said and extended her hand to the diminutive man who stepped forward to meet her. He matched her firm handshake and there was a bright color to his eyes that even sorrow could not restrain. His Native Peoples heritage was clear in the wide planes of his cheekbones and close-cropped black hair as he released her hand and retook his seat. He looked uninjured but held himself as though something terrible had broken him.

"Field Marshall, I would have preferred this meeting be with the Marshall General."

"Of course, sir, but with all due respect, you have me. Please clear the room."

PM Woljamiri nodded and waved his hand out the door. "Non-criticals out." The room hesitated as though they all considered themselves critical. "Hansens, Bayali, and the Major General will stay."

The room must have been a dancing hall prior to its repurposing as a war room. The high ceilings and delicate crenellation seemed more suited for a British castle than this far across the ocean but she wasn't a fan of the style even before the UK became endangered.

It took a moment to clear the room and the named persons gathered around her. Margret prompted the tablet to turn on its holographic processing unit. Several charts rose into stark relief. She selected the data surrounding the breach and pulled it into sharp relief. Numbers and facts ran continually next to the image but what was very clear was the increasing frequency of attacks.

"We know this," the Major General snorted with a thick Canberra accent.

"Four jaegers left, Major General. At this rate of increase, four will soon not be enough. Not if the jaegers require repair or maintenance. Not if our pilots require sleep or food or neural rest. Four jaegers, sir. Four jaegers to hold back the armies of kaiju that are coming."

"You've got a trend. You don't have proof."

"I look into the breach and see the big eyes, the big ears, and the big teeth. I do not need to see Grandmother in his stomach to know that the Wolf will eat me next."

Chuck stepped forward, his posture belligerent. Margret saw the flash of concern in Herc's eyes as she turned to face his son. The tall young man tried to use his height to bully her. "You're going to pull Striker Eureka."

"I am. You've been recalled to Hong Kong."

"Leaving us defenseless!" The Major General turned red. "Our entire defense is predicated on the support of Striker. This is unconscionable! We can't evacuate all of Australia."

"Wait a minute," Chuck moved to grab Margret's arm and she twisted sideways and turned the motion past her. She was tempted, for a moment, to extend her arm and trap him in a wrist-lock. Herc lunged forward as well to grab his son. The two men stepped back as Margret continued her focus on the Prime Minister. She ignored Herc's whispered, "_Don't you dare assault a Field Marshall_."

"This is no longer of a question of _if_ but _when_."

"When what?" The PM's advisor Nera Bayali spoke for the first time. "What will happen next?"

"The Marshall General has a plan?" The PM interrupted and his skin paled noticeably. "I cannot go into the other room and justify this unless there is a plan…and a chance."

Margret swept her hand through the data and plucked a new icon from the holographic map. It began to cycle through the remaining jaegers with photos of their pilots. Striker Eureka: Herc and Chuck Hansen. Cherno Alpha: Sasha and Aleksis Kaidonovsky. Crimson Typhoon: the Wei brothers. And Gipsy Danger: Raleigh Beckett with a blank space next to him.

"He has a plan," she answered him and him alone. "But we need every jaeger to have a chance of success. To stop the Wolf before he can cross the breach."

"You have no idea what you're asking us to do." With his voice broken, the Major General seemed to have lost his own vitality and looked ready to have a heart attack. "The next kaiju attack will require that we detonate another nuclear weapon on Australian soil. Do you understand what another nuclear explosion will do to us? The price it will cost us?"

"Yes. I do." Margret could smell the burning stench of flesh and the oil fires on salt water and it clenched her stomach tightly together. "I was in Ireland. And I was on the flotilla of ships when Shrike came through the center of it. I know exactly what I'm asking Australia to do. And it's to trust that when I say the Marshall General has a plan, that it's the best hope we all have left."

"Take them." The Prime Minister said and sank deeper into his chair. "Striker Eureka will be underway in two hours."

* * *

The Conn-pod seemed naked without the helmet casing around it. It had taken Ygor, Chip, Debrey, and Yi almost six hours to unconnect the hook-ups and pull it out of Foxtrot. Now he stared at the raw plugs and cables that were tied and labeled outside of its compression shell. The entrance was open, the door part of Foxtrot's actual helmet, and he walked inside. Each kick of his feet disturbed the dust of disuse and he scanned the room as though it would hold physical memories.

Ygor had enough of those on his own. He caught his reflection in a glossy black panel and frowned even further. His fleshy full-lidded ears seemed darker than usual which only accentuated the bags under them. He had a narrow nose and square jaw weakened by age's attempt to grow jowls and he was all too aware that he was not a handsome man.

For every dead pilot there remained a crew behind them and the loss meant more than just the money spent. Too many of his friends had watched their careers end. The thoughtful letters that Pentecost drafted all meant the same thing. We're very sorry you no longer have a job. Best of luck in your relocation outside of the Shatterdome. Some managed to pull new gigs on another crew, or found that they were fine living in the hovel of The Bone District. There were jobs for skilled mechanics but even those jobs didn't fix the stench of failure that hovered over them.

Every sane piece of advice he had was the same – jump ship while there was still time left.

And yet.

And…yet.

He ran his hands over the pilot control panel as though it were the direct voice to Foxtrot. He wouldn't leave her, not while she was broken.

"You thinkin' about going pilot?" Tendo's voice scared him and he jumped.

"Motherfucker. How 'bout you knock?"

Tendo grinned at him. "You know what they say, my man. Drifting is the quickest way to a lay and Mags isn't too bad. You know, among the available options."

He frowned at the association. Most assumed that all male-female pairs were sleeping with each other. "Margret wasn't sleeping with Yoshi."

"Yeah, but she was in love with him."

The accusation was true, but Ygor moved to the back of the second pilot seat and began to disconnect the padded cover to get into the neural connections that linked the pilot's helmet at the base of the brain. "She's a Ranger and a damn good pilot. At least, if she's fucking her co-pilot, it saves lives by strengthening the drift. What do you get from a quick fuck? Herpes?"

He snorted under his breath and coughed out a nasty Russian epithet that he knew Tendo could translate. "Mags is not my type. I stay because I love this ridiculous orange machine." He rested his hand against the wall of the Conn-pod and wondered if Foxtrot felt as frustrated by her inability to move as he felt reflected on him. "I stay for Foxtrot."

"So you must think she's salvageable."

"I don't know." The honesty burned in his throat. "But I'm not dead or fired, so I might as well keep trying."

"Even if it kills the next pilots?"

"Even if I have to tie her to a hauler, drag her carcass to the breach, and throw her at a kaiju. Yes. I will keep trying. It's why we're here."

Tendo took in the room and nodded solemnly. His hand clapped down on Ygor's shoulder and they shared a moment. "Amen, brother. Let's get this broad working." The sharp whistle startled Ygor again but it called a group of men from outside the Conn-pod. They clustered in through the doorway with their equipment as Tendo gestured for them to draw round. "You all answer to Ygor now. Do what he says, when he says it, and for gods-sake, do it fast."


	4. Chapter 4: Pushed (revised)

**Australian Shatterdome**

**+7 hours Kaiju event**

* * *

Margret stepped onto the dojo floor and was reminded of Foxtrot's bay. The paneled wooden room could easily hold fifty students and be quartered into at least four sizable practice mats but it was almost empty. Two older men worked through kendo forms in a corner and another woman was performed kata as though it was a dance. Instead of harsh aggression, each form flowed into the next one as though she chased some mythical opponent.

None of these appealed to her.

She warmed up on a rope and speed bag and found a wooden dummy in the corner. It wasn't her strongest suit, but the jeet kun do drills felt good. Open hand slaps and knife edge thrusts resounded against the core of the dummy and then again on each of the protruding branches. Speed could be as lethal a trap as pride and Margret focused on rhythm or the lack of it. Each time she felt the urge to settle she would pick drop a beat and change tempo.

"When are you going to tell us the Marshall General's great plan?" Chuck Hansen's voice had a laconic arrogance to it.

Her hand pummeled the dummy and she shifted to an interior attack, using both elbows to strike at the center core. Then she pushed away and faced him. "Tomorrow morning, when we're airborne."

"I want to know what he thinks is so bloody important that we should abandon our post."

"Come." She abandoned the dummy on the side of the room and stepped bare-footed to the center of the black padded mat.

The look in his eyes said that he anticipated the fight. From his personnel files, Margret knew that he was nine years younger than her at 21 and raised by his father Henry "Hercules" Hansen after his mother was killed in a car accident during mandatory evacuations. After Herc joined the Jaeger Rangers it was inevitable that his son, who'd been raised in a Shatterdome, would follow him into the Conn-pod. It still made him an arrogant, handsome, asshole in Margret's eyes but he was a damn good Ranger.

"What style?" He challenged.

"Tui shou," she answered and lifted her hands out towards him. As usual, her weight settled down and her knees bent softly to take the weight.

"Toi shu?"

"Tui shou," Herc answered and Margret was startled to see him there.

Both Hansen men wore black cotton pants and black t-shirts with their eponymous bulldog on the breast. "Sticky hands training. The Field Marshall and Yoshi Nagata trained intensively in Asian style martial arts, aikido, judo, jiu-jitsu. Foxtrot Alpha is the only jaeger capable of that kind of movement. Has to do with those plastic muscle cables she uses."

"Oh," Chuck answered. "The thing on your knees."

"Shikko, it's normally used to strengthen the musculature of the legs and in instances when a fighter cannot stand. I did not know that Foxtrot could do it before we tried." She tried to keep her response emotionless.

The conversation had turned away from her and memories of knee-walking brought back Yoshi's face and the smell of his blood as it had poured out of his nose. It smelled pale and slightly off, anemia read the final report, but the odor always reminded her of motor oil with its biting and unhealthy flavor on the back of the tongue.

"I box, that's my style. A little muy thai mixed in, but even Dad likes old school best. Takes kaiju down every time."

Margret reached out her hand again. "Tui shou is not about beating your opponent or even gaining mastery. It's about learning how your opponent moves. Sometimes its about learning your own weaknesses."

"I think I'm good. Ten kills, remember?"

Margret's hands were still up. Herc pulled his son to the side and took his place. She wanted to hesitate but forced herself to meet his eyes calmly.

"Stand there, maybe you'll learn something." Herc lifted his hands to hers and Margret immediately began a standard pushing tactic to see how he'd respond to aggression. He accepted it and turned the movement of her pressure back towards her. The press of their hands on each was followed by the movement of their bodies: forward onto the toes and then back again to the heels. Like the woman doing kata, sticky hands was a dance between two fighters who moved with patience as they tested the limits of balance and tried to use movement against the other. Then faster. Herc's hands ran along the backs of hers, caught her wrists and tried to open her defense.

"When I first learned this, Sensei Ovechkin would duct tape our hands together and make us put one foot under the mat so we couldn't move."

The description made her smile. She turned the gambit vertical and took it back to him. "He died two years ago, but I trained with him. He super-glued me to Yoshi one day when we weren't listening."

"Listening?" Chuck said and hey'd both forgotten he was there. Herc tried to pull her high and she let him go without following, off-balancing him, and then she retook the momentum and drew him back to her position of strength.

"Match. Listen. Disrupt the center." His hand shot forward towards Margret's shirt but she had already twisted her hip and his momentum carried him forward and to the ground. She followed him with her hand and before he'd even bounced on the mat she was pulling him back to his feet.

"Deception too. Just because you think you're fighting as one, out here, compatibility is a choice." Her answer was to Chuck but her eyes were on another memory entirely. She shook her head to dispel it. "It took Yoshi and I over a day to peel off the super-glue without losing skin. Tui shou is a good drill. Reemphasizes the drift."

"Obviously you needed more of it then."

"Chuck!" Herc snapped.

"It's the truth. Shoddy pilots can't handle the drift or the neural feedback. The data recordings show the truth. Their handshake was crap." The younger man snorted heavily and faced her straight on. "No offense, ma'am. Just calling it like I see it. You and your co-pilot were going to kill each other sooner or later."

"I will not disrespect your co-pilot by saying that your views will change when you've lost one." Margret's voice was tight. "I have fought as a Ranger for seven years, first in Tango Caribe and then in Foxtrot Alpha. Yoshi was a pro in every sense of the word. It's my jaeger who likes to eat pilots for breakfast. She skull fucks them quite spectacularly and that has nothing to do with mediocrity."

She stepped forward, cognizant of Chuck's height. A part of her wondered if she would have ended up as arrogant had Foxtrot been successful, but she didn't really care, the only problem now was his ability to function as part of a four jaeger team instead of the solo victories he enjoyed at the cost of other's lives.

"I will not threaten you, Mr. Hansen, but I will not coddle you and pet your ego either. Your father makes up for your weaknesses but you are not a balanced fighter. Some day that will cost you your jaeger and maybe the war. My job until that point is to try to function as the Field Marshall - which means your weaknesses, fuck-ups, and general inability to take direction are my fucking problem. Are we clear?"

He was silent.

Margret got a hold of his clothing and let him fight against her balance before deciding to retreat to what he knew best. He tried to hammer down to break her grip but she sank her weight into the floor, pulling him off-balance and forward into a throw. As he hit on his spine she used his weight to carry her with him, kept hold of his arm, and slid out into an armbar before he'd taken the first breath after hitting the mat. She let him struggle against it for a second and then torqued her hips just enough that he tapped.

She let him up and climbed back to her feet. Chuck was red and veins popped on his forehead as he rounded on her again. This time she used Hane Goshi using his momentum to help lift his weight up over her back. He hit the mat hard and instead of the armbar dropped her knee into the vee of his shoulder. With a short jerk she stepped back and let him rise again.

He snapped an ill-timed punch out and caught her on the cheekbone. Herc said something but they weren't listening. Chuck attacked again with a vicious and fast roundhouse but she side-stepped the blow and moved just out of his reach. He attacked harder, faster. His punches lacked control and she easily evaded them.

His father grabbed a hold of Chuck mid-swing. The two men grappled for a moment. Chuck had height on his dad, but not the same wiry strength and decades of experience. "You. Go take a cold shower and try to listen to what the Field Marshall said. You could chase her around all night because you're too stupid to admit you could use a little work."

"I…"

"Go." Herc followed Chuck to the edge of the mat and then to the door where the two men spoke briefly out of Margret's earshot. She ignored them and grabbed her towel and water bottle to leave the dojo. Even the few other practitioners had left during her fight. She knew how Pentecost would have handled it. He would have wiped the floor with Striker's pilot and asserted his immediate male dominance.

She hurried out of the west entrance and back towards her temporary quarters when she heard the footsteps behind her and turned to confront Herc. The walls in the Sydney Shatterdome were not like Hong Kong's. Someone had gone through them with elaborate chalk paintings that seemed to be a mixture of Native Peoples inspired art and a story about how the kaiju had changed the world.

A chalk picture of Yamarashi reared up just above his shoulder but Margret looked away from it and back to his face.

"He's a good Ranger." Herc struggled to find the words. "I hope you won't hold that against him. He doesn't like to leave this place undefended."

"Striker is unsurpassed." Margret answered softly. "But we're all soldiers when it comes down to it, and if Pentecost thinks that there's a chance to destroy the Breach, I will drag him unconscious if I have to."

"You're a good match for him."

It took her a moment to realize what Herc had said and then disbelief flooded her and she shook her head with a laugh. "You don't know me very well and I'm no longer on the active Ranger list."

"What?"

Her hands moved of her own accord and tightened across her chest as she tried not to let the distress on her face show. "I'm grounded."

"Bullshit. Pentecost would never, not if he really has a plan."

"I told you that we had four jaegers. That's true. I was already battling the clock with Foxtrot and the Marshall gave me more time and money than I had the right to use. She…" Margret couldn't help it, her voice broke letting her accent back out and a lump grew in her throat making it hard to breathe. "She is going to be melted down for scrap soon enough. The bio-mechnical polymer sends too much feedback to the pilot, Herman ran the numbers, he says I have neural scarring that precludes me from additional duty."

"Margret." Herc reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder but did not move closer to her and she was struck by the feeling of the space between them. It seemed unbreachable now.

"I don't need your pity." She pushed his hand away and for a moment, it was as though they were back in the dojo. He absorbed the movement and began to turn it, capturing the energy, and taking it back towards her –he disengaged abruptly. It felt like something was lost and before she could embarrass herself further she turned and kept walking towards her room. The echoes of her footsteps chased her all the way.


	5. Chapter 5: Reunions (revised)

**+1 day Kaiju attack**

* * *

The chopper set down with a bump in the driving rain and Margret looked out the window to see Ygor waiting on the tarmac for them. The brief wave he gave her was more a gesture to hurry up than anything else. She didn't wait to see if the Hansens were following her. So far she preferred their dog to them. Max knew a sucker when he found one. The bulldog had butted at her for attention and she was glad of the simple distraction as she petted him throughout the flight. The chopper didn't have the same floorspace so Chuck kept him tightly in check when they switched to the heavy transport.

The orphans wing of the Jaeger Academy didn't allow pets although she vaguely remembered a kitten Jimmy Prioytis smuggled in one winter. They hid it from the floor monitors for two weeks. But they returned from chow one night to find it gone. The horrified searches for the kitten turned up empty-handed leaving them to hope it had wandered off. Despite the ferals living around the Siberian Jaeger Academy, no one tried to bring another animal in. The fear of loss was too prevalent.

"Your tech?" Herc asked.

"Ygor Dmitrivich."

"He trained in Siberia on the old Chernos."

Time clicked inexorably onward on her watch but Margret added and subtracted trying to remember how much she'd gained and lost on her trip versus the flight in from Russia. "Cherno Alpha should be here soon, about the same time the Marshall returns." She saw Mako emerge from under the overhang but the diminutive Japanese woman held back from the swirling swathes of rain. The chopper blades drove it in circles as it hovered down to the landing pad. "Gentlemen."

Three steps out of the chopper she regretted it. The blades still super-charged the air with static and made her feel like her hair was simultaneously frizzy and sopping wet. Ygor came towards her, his heavy mechanic's overalls were made out of oiled canvas and the water beaded on top of them.

"I need you to come look at something."

"What?" She shouted to be heard.

"I think I figured it out."

Disbelief warred with the desire to believe him. "I've only been gone 24 hours."

"Mags, _I am a trained jaeger mechanic. It is my duty to get your goddamned machine out of dry dock before my countrymen can see the laughing stock I've become."_ Ygor's Russian always seemed heavy and ponderous as though he translated the words back and forth between several languages before settling on the ones he wanted. His English didn't suffer from the same tics of speech.

"_Am I going to like it?"_ Margret glanced up as Herc and Chuck reached her and Ygor in the alcove to the side of the landing field. She noticed again that Mako was waiting and bowed more formally to the other woman.

"Mako."

"Margret."

"The Marshall is almost here with Raleigh Beckett. He wants you available for a meeting with Mr. Hansen." Every time the woman spoke she chose her words carefully, but unlike Ygor, her speech gave the impression of caution.

Margret looked back at Ygor where he danced with impatience. "Give me five. Mr. Hansen knows the Shatterdome well enough to find his rooms."

She hurried after Ygor who kept a quick pace that kept him just in front of her. The expression on his face was more animated than she'd seen in a long while. They commandeered the next cart and swung on board.

"Foxtrot runs hot. Too much neural feedback."

"I know."

"And we usually blame it on the pilot. Too much to handle, neural scarring, et cetera."

"I know this, Ygor."

"No, Margret, you do not."

They reached their bay and she could see activity inside the Conn-pod. Ygor shouted as they entered and Chip popped out of the doorway with his welding goggles tightly over his face.

"Hoy! We're almost done with the rigging."

"Rigging?"

"Ideally we'd put it somewhere lower, maybe below the command module but I need to run some tests on the rig before we do our first run"

Margret stuck her head in the door and settled back onto her heels. In the time she'd been gone, the Conn-pod had undergone massive changes. There were two additional jump seats connected to the rear of the module. Neither appeared to be connected to Foxtrot's motor function but two men she didn't recognize were busy installing what looked like computer terminals linked to systems checks. Once the alterations were complete, Foxtrot would have four brains.

"No one has ever drifted four together. Even the Wei's are unique. Two pilots are the most that can sustain a drift."

"Two pilots," Ygor grinned. "And two conn officers. I told you that you sucked at rebalancing muscle stress during combat. So we'll take Foxtrot's feedback and split it. One for combat movement. One for biomechanical function."

Her silence remained the only constant as she took in the Conn-pod and even the steady hiss of welding faded out as the mechanics waited for her to respond.

"Two pairs." Ygor tried to fill in the quiet. "No one dies."

"Does she like it?" Tendo asked as he stepped into the doorway. "Permission to enter, ma'am?"

"Whose idea was it?" The question was almost breathless.

"Ygor's. I supplied the manpower." His face creased in a smile as Margret grabbed ahold of Ygor's arm and pulled him into a tight hug that ended with her dancing on her toes as he lifted her up into the air.

"Your idea." Her joy was obvious from the smile that almost made her face hurt.

"Unless you had a better idea." He started to say.

"A four-man team." Her smile faded slightly. "But I'm no longer flight qualified. We'll have to train a new crew."

"We might have something for that too." Tendo handed her a slim card. "I'm not sure when you'll have the time. Our attack on the breach is imminent. But there's some dudes in Bone Town who run a Driftzone. It ain't all sex shit, they do some legitimate research."

Margret took the card and ran the tips of her fingers along its edges. It was a matte black with a single wavy line inscribed across the top and an address printed in simple white lettering. "Tendo, tell me that you don't use the Driftzone? Their equipment, you might as well get herpes of the brain for all the good that rig does. Echoes and feedback loops, and there's no telling…"

Tendo grimaced at Ygor. "Why does everyone think I have herpes? I don't, you know."

She let her train of thought falter and die as she examined the jump seats again. They'd been built to withstand heavy pressure and were mounted on a gimbal system very similar to the pilots although this was encapsulation as opposed to muscle extension.

"We'll have to convince the Doc no matter what the treatment is."

"Well, you can either take the Doc to the Zone or bring the tech to the Doc. Either way, Mags, they think they have a cure for minor to moderate neural scarring."

"Who will second you?" She asked Ygor. There was no doubt in her mind that he would be the one there - if he'd been younger, or fitter, or a better fighter he'd have been in a pilot rig along with her – this was his chance.

"Either Chip or Debrey. We'll have to figure out some way to tell compatible mechanics."

"You just want to get in my pants!" Debrey yelled from beneath a panel and waved one barely visible hand. The Tunisian man whistled inside of the electronics. "You Russians are all the same."

"Oh damn," Margret glanced down at her watch. "Cherno is here. Ygor, I love you." She kissed him square on the lips as the crew around them catcalled and hooted their agreement.

Tendo opened his arms for his turn and Margret slapped him playfully across the cheek. "What? I brought the manpower."

"And what will Becky in lift repair think? Or Teva on, what is it, piston crew? Or Lei Li…"

"I get your point," Tendo chortled. "I'm a man with many options."

Ygor's cheeks had pinked under his scruff but he looked pleased. "Hurry up, don't want the Marshall to shut us down."

Margret and Tendo kicked the speed governer out of alignment as they jumped back into the cart and pushed well over the 15 mph limit of the Shatterdome. They raced their cart back through the hallways. Giddiness threatened to overcome her as they reentered the main hangar bay and saw the Marshall standing with Raleigh Beckett and Mako. She hadn't seen Raleigh in five years but it might as well have been five days earlier. He didn't physically look any different except for the absence of Yancy. For a moment she could see the Beckett brothers side-by-side and it made her wince as though that was others saw her with a shadow of Yoshi always trailing behind her.

She squeezed Tendo's hand quickly as she got out of the cart. The Peruvian-Chinese tech was a notorious ladies man but his loyalty to the teams was legendary. She knew that Pentecost hadn't authorized the manpower, but Foxtrot wouldn't have had a chance without it.

"Thank you," she said.

"You still need a co-pilot."

"One thing at a time. Foxtrot is almost back in the fight."

She jumped out and hurried across the deck. She was used to the chaos and deftly avoided the crews moving back and forth across the busy hangar. At the far end, Cherno Alpha was being levered in on a caterpillar crawler and she could just make out Aleksis's height towering over Sasha's. But first she moved towards Raleigh and his eyes caught sight of her just as she got close.

"Mags," he grinned as she got close. "Wow, I haven't seen you in… a long time."

"How are you, Raleigh?"

"Getting called back to duty. You?"

"Almost in the fight." She saw the Marshall gesture to her and gave him a slight apologetic bow before she turned back to Raleigh. "Wait until you see what Mako has accomplished. I'd have stolen her if the Marshall wouldn't have killed me for it."

She kicked her feet into double-time and jogged her way back towards the Marshall whose face showed neither displeasure nor irritation yet still seemed unsatisfied by her speed.

"I need Sasha and Aleksis in my quarters in five minutes for the briefing with Herc. You will be there as well."

"Yes, sir. I'll bring them straight up." She pivoted on one heel to head towards the hulking behemoth that was Cherno Alpha when he cleared his throat and she froze in place. "Yes, sir."

"I'm not sure if four brains will make Foxtrot a viable jaeger, but it will be interesting either way. Make sure that Newt and Dr. Gottlieb are informed of your progress." He stared at her directly. "But it cannot be the priority, this mission is the only priority right now and I need your brain focused on that."

"One hundred percent, Marshall, you have my word."


	6. Chapter 6: Friends

**+34 hours Kaiju attack**

* * *

The Shatterdome was as quiet as it ever got. The night crews went about their duties in a half-lit hangar bay but without the day crews it felt empty and abandoned. Inside the machine shops and in the warrens of the repair bays in the sub-floors, the lights burned brightly. Outside on the floor and catwalks, the hulking shadows of the four functional jaegers loomed in the darkness. The physicality of the giant mechs was only surpassed by the kaijus themselves.

The tiny silver representation of the kaiju called Shrike spun on a slim chain. It did not catch the faint reflections of light from where it was cupped between her hands.

Shrike was a Category II kaiju when it came through the Breach and swam through the Panamanian canal towards the Atlantic Ocean. The military said it was impossible for the kaiju to be a worldwide threat.

It breached out of the water just south of Galway and sent most of Ireland into panic. At its widest, the island was only 171 miles across and so many of her towns and villages looked out over the dangerous ocean. The 1st Infantry Brigade went against Shrike and was the first victim of the curved beak and thorny hedge of spikes that covered the front legs and tail of the beast. It did not roar like most kaiju but screamed like a bird of prey as it demolished the brigade and began to sweep through towns. Even sheep and cattle were not immune to its predation as it stomped through the cloaking veil of fog and rain to the next village. Cars, motorcycles, and buses packed the roads and the ferries were so overcrowded that two sank while the British fleet powered across the Irish Ocean to assist and defend their neighbor.

The bauble spun again and threw light up onto the reddened skin of Margret's arm.

She'd seen Shrike as her father abandoned their car. Its wheels spun in mud on the side of the road. Her little brother was in his arms while her mother pushed Margret ahead of her towards the long queues on the wharves. They were both wearing heavy wool shirts because it had been a cold winter and she remembered how her nose had hurt from rubbing as soldiers agreed to let the children board the ship first. The ground rumbled and shook under their feet but they were passed towards the large ship. She'd taken her brother from her father as he kissed her desperately. Her mother told her to stay put and they would find them on the other side. Her mother's kisses were rushed and yet, Margret could most remember the look of her mother's hand pressed against her chest as her children climbed onto one of the gangplanks and onto the ship.

It spun again.

They pushed deep inside the crowd so Margret didn't know at first that anything had happened. The ship made way against the rising waves. Despite her familiarity with the water, she put Liam next to her as she retched into a bucket amid the sobbing and crying of other children and families. Liam whuffled about 'mummy and daddy' and Margret vomited with each sway of the ship. When her stomach had nothing more to retch they pushed their way up to the deck. Most of the crowd was pushing to the inside of the ship and now Margret could see why. Shrike's head bobbed above the waves and the wharves burned behind it.

Of the three ships in their tiny cluster, one it simply pulled under the waves. The second turned and fired on Shrike with loud chattering machine guns and everyone on their ship ducked and screamed with the onslaught. Shrike ripped the ship apart and scattered the pieces behind it as it turned on their ship.

Their captain engaged big guns on the aft deck. These charged with heavy thunder and sent missiles at Shrike again and again. Margret knew Liam screamed from the noise but she was deaf from the percussive blasts.

Shrike started to slow and there were a few cheers and orders to 'Take that!'.

It dove. The future Margret knew that the naval officers had been screaming to get every ounce of power out of the ship's engines. She remembered the ship hitting each wave harder and faster even as frantic cries demanded to know where the kajiu had gone. She clung to Liam and pressed his face against her sweater.

"I love you." She whispered over and over to him until her throat clogged with pain.

The whump blew them both into the air. Later she knew that the boilers had blown up as they were caved in from below. Shrike had used the bottom of the ocean as a launching platform to power its explosive charge through the ship. And somehow she'd held onto Liam even as they were thrown amidst other bodies and equipment into the water. She'd held onto him as they fought their way out of the sinking morass.

She felt the reptilian presence of Shrike in the water beside them. She'd felt the chill of the water warm with blood and her little brother's urine as she held him close and quiet. The kaiju didn't notice them as it turned and headed back to shore, to the burning fires of the city it had just left and to the rest of her home.

That was when she put Liam onto her back and started to swim. A coast guard ship picked them up six hours later and discovered that the flash of fire from the exploding boilers had caused both siblings to suffer second degree burns. Their wool sweaters had damped out the flames better than any application of water.

She closed her fist down over Shrike. The RAF killed it twelve hours later when Ireland was declared to be a lost cause and two artillery strikes failed to work. The nukes did the job and Shrike impaled itself on the once green landscape as fires raged around it.

Liam lived. The last she'd heard from him, he had twelve kids under his roof in the middle of Omaha and a comfortable life as a professional foster father with his partner. They spoke occasionally but he was terrified of kaijus, the ocean, and her in particular. He remembered the attack differently, as a time of fear and suffering and no comfort, where she had always had something to live for.

Liam knew the value of a good foster family, he'd been raised far from her, and sometimes she felt like that might have betrayed what her parents would have wanted of them. But the more honest answer was that she was the disappointment. Battling kaijus was far from safety and far from happiness most days.

"Field Marshall," the voice only had one owner and he limped towards her, his tie too tight, and his hair still horribly awkward.

"Dr. Gottlieb, Margret is still easier."

"I worry that your first name brings the familiarity of friendship into the work environment."

"My friends don't call me Margret." He stiffened and she realized she'd hurt him. "I'm sorry. I came up here to stew in my own thoughts. Sometimes that's not a good thing. Sit down, please."

It took him a long moment to transfer his weight carefully and use the cane to lever himself down without falling. The ankle brace stuck out beneath his pants leg and he still declined to come to the very edge. Her sneakered feet hung over the six floor drop to the bay floor and she had hooked her arms through the railing but more to support the weight of her upper body as she leaned against the metal. Herman was still in a suit with his bowtie firmly affixed in place.

"Am I interrupting?"

"Just thinking," she leaned back slightly and tucked the Shrike medallion back into her hip pocket. "Your plan is good. Suicidal but good."

"Suicidal?" He was taken aback by her statement.

"A double event and then shoving a nuke into the throat? Even if the jaegers dispatch whatever comes through, the breach itself could be inherently unstable. Proper placement of the bomb will probably require that it be delivered directly."

Herman's face didn't seem to comprehend for a moment and then it dawned on him. "I…certainly there are missile deployment systems that could deliver the nuclear payload."

But he hadn't been in the briefing. Hu Wei had, the Kaidonovskys, Herc Hansen, and her. Of those present, they'd all understood the mission parameters. Pentecost's call not to include Raleigh Beckett or Chuck Hansen was also well understood by the group standing there. Chuck was too hotheaded and Gipsy Danger was support only with Raleigh himself too recently returned to active duty. Striker would carry the nuke in but any one of them might have to carry it the last steps and Pentecost was completely clear that he expected it of them. If Striker failed to seat the missile correctly, it was their duty to use their jaegers to hold the throat open while it dropped through the Breach.

"I did not intend…." His voice trailed quieter.

"I'm only upset that Foxtrot won't be ready by the time they need her. Do you have the latest tests? Is Ygor's plan going to work? Will she be fight worthy with four pilots?"

He fumbled with his lapels and pulled out a sheet of meticulously written notes in every inch of blank space on the paper. "Foxtrot didn't have the neural output when she was commissioned. It took her two years to reach the lethal levels that killed Yoshi Nagata. With four minds, she would theoretically have at least four years of service if her numbers continue to worsen. I've rerun a few of the algorithms and think that we could improve on that substantially. Teach her software to recognize the base levels of feedback and to initiate buffers when in combat."

"Good."

"That doesn't address the other concern I have. Ms. O'Donnell, you can't possibly try a neural modification from a Driftzone shop. They're unclean. More likely you'd contract a skin disease or be kidnapped or…"

"I want you to come with me." Margret was surprised to hear herself ask him.

"What?" He ducked his head tightly against his chest as his words started to run over each other. "I'm really not suited to field work. Especially not something as dangerous as untried tech. I wouldn't know the first place to begin. My role is best in the lab, I mean that's where the Marshall needs my skills, especially with the next kaiju attack imminent. I couldn't possibly. I mean, seriously, the probabilities of this working are not logically high enough to indicate success."

Margret got to her feet and looked back out into the darkness as the lights cycled one step lower to mark midnight.

"Goodnight, Dr. Gottlieb."

"Wait! Ms. O'Donnell. Field Marshall. Margret!" Herman tried to leap to his feet but tangled the cane in amidst his brace and could not get upright in time to stop her. "Wait."

Margret gave him a half wave but did not stop walking.

"It's not easy being a hero when you can't pilot a jaeger, but I'm trying, Margret. I'm trying even though you look at me like I'm just another enemy standing in your way." He turned a bright red as she hesitated and then stopped on the walkway. "I just want-"

"I just want you to see me."

She turned slowly to face him. "I see you but I don't want to hurt you. I…"

"Don't fancy me." Herman's back straightened as though he made a conscious choice to disregard his personal feelings. "I understand."

Margret nodded. There was no other way to be honest than directly.

"Perhaps we could try something different then."

She waited.

"And aim for friendship instead. God knows I'm going to go crazy with only Newton Geizler for companionship. You saw his latest obsession – drifting with a kaiju. He will kill himself first. Not that the mess will be any worse than the entrails he continues to leave scattered all over the lab." He babbled on and then caught himself. She still waited. "I never had friends growing up. I… I didn't think I needed them. Between my brain and my leg." He faltered finally and fell into silence.

"People are frightening. Numbers are easy."

"Yes," he bobbed his head. "Exactly."

"My brother asked me once why I insisted on being in the PPDC. We survived a direct assault by Shrike; no one would have faulted me for moving inland, taking up a safe career, and never stepping foot near water. Other than him I have no family. No one. Except for my friends. You asked why I'd keep fighting. I fight for my friends, Herman, no matter how scared I am. They forgive me when I'm a bitch and hold my hair when I'm puking. Friends. Real friends, understand exactly who you are and like you anyway."

There was a long silence as he considered her offer.

"I would be honored if you would call me Herman in private. I," he seemed to war with himself for a moment. "If it's not too much trouble, I would still like to be called Dr. Gottlieb when we are working."

Margret remembered the meaty hand of Aleksis as he helped her up. The fight hadn't gone in her favor and her nose bled and her eye was swollen shut. The other teenagers backed off as the Russian Ranger, himself a giant at seven feet tall, picked her up off the ground and set her on her feet. The heavy set Mongolian girl who'd started things squared herself but Aleksis ignored her.

"_Kaiju do not give up_." He told her in Russian. "_Kaiju will kill your family and your friends unless you stop it. Jaegers must not give up either._"

"I'm not giving up." She'd said to him and spit the blood from her mouth to the ground. "Not ever."

"_Good. Now show her what a jaeger pilot is made of_."

The others started to gather round as Tsetsegmaa lunged back towards her. The second fight was brutal and more than once an adult tried to interfere while Aleksis persuaded them not to. Tsetsegmaa still outweighed Margret and was a heavier striker. But every time Margret went down, she got back up and tried a new strategy. Again and again.

Like swimming through the water with Liam on her back. He'd cried himself to sleep on her back and was so heavy. Every time she tried to go under, fear drove her back up, she couldn't be the reason her little brother died. Every cramp of her legs as she treaded above the ocean waves. Every shiver and every sob. Every punch that landed, Margret just got back up, no matter how much it hurt. Everyone needed something to fight for.

She moved through the space towards him and took his hand in hers. "I can do that, Herman. It's Mags among my friends."

* * *

_What Margret says about friends was lifted from:_

_"A true friend is one who knows all about you and likes you anyway."_

_Christi Mary Warner_


	7. Chapter 7: Rabbits

**+2 days Kaiju event**

* * *

There was a crowd.

Raleigh paused at the edge of it with Margret and Tendo a few steps behind him. "Maybe I should wait. We seem to be missing a few people." The gentle sarcasm made them all smile a bit.

"They wouldn't fit. Come on, you never minded showing off a bit." Tendo punched him in the arm. "You're the returning champion, these guys, they just wish they were pilots."

"Beckett," Aleksis pushed through the crowd to them. His bleached hair towered above the others. "_Hurry up and find a new pilot. I have good vodka I brought here for the Mess._"

"My Russian is a little rusty." Raleigh explained and unlaced his boots.

"In Siberia, new pilot teams are toasted by the crews. It usually involves too much drinking for everyone except the new pilots." Margret didn't see his wife with him. "_Where's Sasha_?"

"_Arranging for Ygor to host the party_." His beard split with his grin. "Ygor always good party."

"_Your English still sucks_."

"_So does your tolerance of good vodka_."

"People!" Pentecost's voice rang out and the crowd, including the four of them, glanced up. "You will stay quiet and respectful during this test." Mako was next to him with her clipboard and kept her head down and focused on the papers there. Raleigh didn't wait for the next command but selected a short staff from the group on the wall and moved to the center of the room.

They crowd stilled to watch. The first several candidates were mismatched. Raleigh beat each one easily and there was no push-back from the opponents. No sense that any of them had the right flow to be his co-pilot.

Margret knew that Aleksis watched intently but his praise rested squarely with Beckett. The potentials gave up too easily. The Russian pilot did not value the acceptance of defeat, it was why he'd helped Margret when she was seventeen. It was what he'd admired in Sasha when his wife had walked into the ring with him when most of the others declined. He was seven feet tall and over 250 pounds. Sasha took the first point when she used his leg as a boost to get her high enough to swing her knee around his head and bring him to the mat. Off-balance he'd fallen hard onto her and for a moment those watching thought he'd killed her. But then Sasha had pushed him away and gotten back to her feet and with one hand urged him to attack again.

Margret had been there for the Kaidonovsky's test. She was close to her own graduation and had placed in the finals for jaeger selection. The next step was finding a drift compatible partner. Sibling groups typically advanced faster but there were always plenty of solo candidates. Sasha had stopped the clock though, the Field Marshall hadn't even let them get to four points, it was obvious that they were Cherno's team.

She half-watched as Raleigh trounced another candidate. Her attention led her eyes over the crowd. Mechanics for the most part, she knew a few by name. Tendo and his latest lady love were arm and arm. Her eyes continued to slide and she found Herc and Chuck watching from the far side of the crowd. He was watching her. It felt strange to know that. She held his gaze for a moment longer and then turned back to Aleksis as he muttered under his breath.

"_I_ s_hould have brought Russian candidates_."

Mako shared his irritation and Raleigh called her on it. He challenged her to duel him and the crowd spoke amongst themselves as she prepared herself. She hadn't been a finalist, those who knew her history, knew why. It was only Beckett who dared the Marshall's wrath.

Herc still watched her. Margret met his gaze again, held it longer this time. Then, as Mako engaged, she watched as Raleigh's overconfidence worked against him. Mako was a strong fighter, especially with bo staves. The score wavered back and forth, but it was Mako who took the final point.

Pentecost was displeased. "Mr. Beckett, report to the Shatterdome in two hours to find out who your co-pilot will be."

The crowd dispersed but Margret found herself wanting to linger. She sat against one wall and pulled off her boots as people streamed out. When she looked up again, he was watching her again.

"You know that's a little creepy."

"You were watching me too." Herc answered. "I have _my_ reasons."

"Still creepy," she told him and rolled up the cuffs of her pants. "Rematch?"

She warmed up and then waited for him to do the same. Instead of the long bo staves she selected the shorter pairs of yantons, two foots sticks used in Eskrima, and spun them to familiarize herself with their weight. Herc did not take a pair, but opened a small compartment and drew out boxing gloves. His intent was obvious and she sighed. The sticks were tossed to the base of the wall and she accepted the gloves.

"I can't guarantee that I'll be able to pull my punches." The gloves smelled like old sweat and leather covered with another glaze of old sweat. "I don't box much."

"I think I can take the abuse." He gave her a funny half smile and began to bounce lightly on his toes. Margret watched him for a moment. For a moment she wondered if this was his way of apologizing for his son. The rumor mill had already caught wind of the animosity between Chuck and Raleigh. It was the one thing that distracted people from the ticking of the clock. The fact that it proved Margret's assessment of him did not bring her any joy.

They started slow. He was a direct fighter and as the speed increased Margret was hard pressed by him. He liked to throw rapid combinations, to keep the fight moving forward, and to settle her back into a defensive posture. Several times she saw an opening to let him shoot a punch straight at her, potentially leaving him off-balance and open, but she hesitated instead of taking it. It was obvious that he held back as well. That was when she realized his reasons for staying.

"I've already had my fighting style evaluated." She pushed away from him and stripped the gloves off with angry jerks. "Although you can have those laurels if Pentecost wants you as a replacement."

"You need a co-pilot and no offense, but Mako's skills are in rebuilds. The men she picked for Beckett were awful. I can do a better job. There are a couple of fellows in Oz who might suit you."

Her stomach clenched with irritation and an irrational urge to punch him. "I don't need it."

"Joseph Temura is a good Ranger and my top pick. He studied traditional Maori styles of fighting but…"

"No." She strode up to him and shoved him hard. It felt good, the anger, the violence. He just absorbed the blow. She was stunned by the solid strength in him as he took the force and didn't strike her back. Margret went after him again and this time he used Tui Shou against her, he took her attack and turned with it. His hands caught hers and pulled her in tight to him. His grip bound her arms, trapped her into place against his body and then, he released her so suddenly that she stumbled off balance away from him.

"You don't have to like me." Herc told her. "But there's not a man in Hong Kong who will partner with you as long as that means piloting Foxtrot Alpha. You were right about my son, physically you're a good match, but he's untested and you need a man who has seen something outside of a Shatterdome. Joseph is my top candidate. Ygor agrees with me."

Margret bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood between her lips. "I do not need a man to find me a partner. Once Foxtrot has the mechanical pilots, I will find my own."

"Are you holding that night against me?"

Her chest tightened with the memory. She couldn't answer. Couldn't find the right way to define what was left between them. And worse, she had no desire to try.

* * *

The test run between Raleigh and Mao did not go well.

Margret declined to stand in the LOCCENT with Pentecost and Herc. She stood with the Kaidonovsky's on the platform overlooking Gipsy Danger. Margret's crew declined the offer to watch. Ygor was running speed stripping and rebuilds of knee sockets. The wrenches being thrown to the floor in anger were on the edge of being flungwhen she left, so watching Gipsy Danger come to life was a nice distraction from the perils of partnership.

Inside the Conn-pod, Raleigh and Mako lost the drift and the phase cannon powered up as they defended from something only they could see.

Sasha dragged as Margret's arm as the air pulsed with ozone and static. "Come, we have to evacuate this level. If she discharges inside the Shatterdome…" The Russian pilot didn't need to detail the destruction it would cause.

Looking up, she imagined what was going on inside the drift. "It will be okay." She answered and just waited.

Sasha chased the others out but Margret waited. The sane part of her realized that the urge to stand was semi-suicidal, but she had faith in them as she hoped others would have in her. There was a point when the power connections popped and she realized that the LOCCENT had disengaged the drift in Gipsy manually. The arm powered down and slowly descended back to the guard position.

* * *

Chuck Hansen was shouting. His face purpled as he rounded on the Marshall, his father, Margret, and anyone else within range. Pentecost kicked him out and sat heavily on the edge of his desk. "I need other options. What should we do?"

"Tomorrow we try Raleigh with Margret." Herc offered, his arms tightly crossed on his chest. "They've known each other for long enough to make a decent handshake."

"Raleigh and I were never compatible. His brother was a different matter but Yancy is not here." Margret snapped back at him. "I saw the feeds. Until they lost control, that was a solid handshake. So it was a little rough the first time. They met yesterday, and the day before that Raleigh was filling in pieces of the Wall. They can come back from today."

Pentecost sighed and glanced between the two of them. "It is the end of the goddamned world. I've got pilots feuding and my two candidates for Marshall bickering with each other. For god's sake, try to remember that we are almost done here. If we're not going to fight together, we might as well kick the Breach open and let the kaiju in ourselves."

"My apologies, sir." Herc broke first. "The Field Marshall just found out that I was suggesting co-pilots for her. I did not inform her first as you had suggested."

"Is that all?" Pentecost asked to Margret. Her face reddened and yet, she was caught under his unflinching gaze.

"A personal failing." She managed to say. "It won't happen again."

The echo of a pipe breaking came through the wall. The muted cheers and whistles of what was most likely a crowd. Herc made it to the door first to find Raleigh and Chuck in a tight clinch, both of their faces bloodied although Chuck appeared to be losing. He swore under his breath and pounced on his son.

Pentecost took in the scene and exhaustion printed itself on his face. "Mako, Beckett, get in here." He stepped back and took a hold of Margret's arm. "This is not a joke, O'Donnell. I've got Newt trying to drift with a kaiju, and no idea if we'll be at half strength before the next event. Fix whatever is going on between you and Herc, preferably without violence."

"Yes, sir."

"Are you still hosting Mess Night tonight?"

"Yes, we were going to. Ygor and Debey are Foxtrot's mechanical brain." She hesitated, Pentecost was not a warm man and didn't take to having his decisions or his orders challenged but she couldn't help herself. "I may not have Herc's experience, but the minute those two saw each other, they knew. That kind of bond is…" Words failed her as the two chagrined pilots pushed past her into his office.


	8. Chapter 8: Sometimes a Dance

**+2 days Kaiju Event**

**2030 hours**

* * *

The tool shop was an unglamorous setting for Mess Night. Tables were arrayed around the room and the mechanical projects had been tented back or hung out of the way. If there were still errant tools and screws underfoot, it was part and parcel of living in the Shatterdome. All the crews were inside and working their way through the large pans of roast beef and potatoes. Each crew then brought their own side dish, hot olaydi from Sasha and Aleksis's men with a vat of sour cream and sweet relish to accompany it. The Wei's crew had gone with fried rice and a deep metal basin of poon choi. It looked like Chip had been in charge of planning for her crew, although they were multi-national, he'd brought a huge pile of potato salad and two watermelons, most likely fermented with ouzo.

Margret stood watching them for a moment and debated getting herself a piece of watermelon, alcohol or not, before it was gone. They weren't in season and it was the wrong side of the world. When he noticed her eying the front he toasted her gallantly with his drink, also courtesy of the Russians.

"Mags!" Chip downed his shot.

"Drink's out. Better get filled up." She called back. "This is the first time we've celebrated one of our one."

Tendo's girlfriends, at least three of those in rotation, walked carefully between the diners and empty glasses and poured vodka into every empty shot glass they could find. Two men with dirt still between their fingernails were hanging the paper lanterns with the sigils of every jaeger, including Foxtrot. It made her throat feel tight to see the flame behind the fox.

She shifted aside as drums were wheeled in behind her. Each one filled with a different amount of oil and set into place on one edge of the room. They were going to fit almost two hundred men and women into the space. It would be tight but they'd still had room for a square in the center of it. She adjusted the black cheongsam dress for the eighteenth time. It fit her just fine but she couldn't remember the last time she'd wore anything with such short cap sleeves.

Her scars were visible along her arms and peeking out from the back of her collar. They looked like large purplish-red birthmarks that started at her waist and traveled up in streaks to her shoulders and out over the flesh of her arms. She'd been holding Liam so he also bore his scars on his back and arms. In places the skin felt thicker, and tiny spots of normal pigment shone through, but she'd been spared the twisting and scorching of flesh that afflicted some when skin melted. In an academy that prized itself on perfect physical specimens, even a small deformity had attracted the ire of the other children.

She didn't realize that she rubbed at it nervously until Sasha touched her shoulder.

"_Its time. I have spoken to them and given them their Clear-D dose_." He grinned down at her. "_Very nice dress_. _I would have worn something skimpier myself_."

"I'd rather be in my coveralls." But she nodded and waved for Tendo to pass her a shot glass as the lights dimmed and allowed the lanterns to really glow. The door opened behind her and she knew that the pairs entered, each holding their own toast as Margret stepped into the center of the room.

The drumroll that led her got a little out of hand and she waited, laughing, for it to die down.

"Mess Night," she started, her voice belling out to those listening. "Is a celebration of the Drift and our pilots. It is also an excuse to drink too much, eat too much, and thank your respective deity that Clear-D was discovered."

The convened crews cheered.

"I'm going to keep this short so we get to the drunken dancing faster."

"You should hike your dress higher then!" One of the mechanics shouted and received more than a few dirty looks. Margret grinned and grabbed a chair from the side. As she stepped on top of it she hiked her skirt once and the twice to mid-thigh as the crews whooped and egged her on.

"Its early," she said directly to the man. "Any higher and I'll need more vodka."

She raised her glass in toast. "To those who came before us." A roar of approval. "To those who fight now." A louder cry. "And to those who haven't yet learned that a partner in the drift is like a bad marriage. You know all of each other's secrets and yet there's no money to split in a divorce."

The crowd went beserk, pounded on the tables, and hollered at the top of their lungs until she had to wave at them to shut down.

"To our crews. Sláinte!" Everyone drank. And Margret waited as the heavy black bottles made their way around again to refill everyone's glass with another round of vodka. "And to our pilots. May they fight hard, drift softly, and sting like a mother-fucking 1800-ton bee. Sláinte!"

When the chaos died down she waved to the group assembled. "That's it from me. Let's eat."

She climbed down from the table as people began to queue up again at the food line or sat down to eat what they'd already pilfered. The drummers sprang into action and started working some deep bass rhythms. Other instruments had been set to the side while their owners ate, but would start playing soon enough.

Aleksis was sitting with the Cheung and Jin Wei, trying to explain something to them in his pidgin English while Sasha was dancing with Hu even though she stood six inches taller. Mako and Raleigh, despite the lunch meal's awkwardness, were being greeted and toasted by those present. Ygor and Debey looked more awkward as they got more ribbing than even her crew normally dealt out. She made her way towards the door and passed another flat of vodka being wheeled in. Aleksis had planned for something like this. They all deserved it if the Marshall's plan was real. They might never come back from the attack on the Breach.

A sad accordion moaned its first notes and the shouts were for something fun and faster.

As Marshall of the Mess she pulled out those who didn't participate fully. Sometimes they drank. Sometimes they tried to recite bad poetry or worse sing it. Margret's job was to keep their mind off what was ahead of them. When she spotted Chuck by himself at the door she sent two sisters from Crimson Typhoon's crew to encourage him to dance with the threat of public humiliation if he didn't. When Aleksis took a break from the Weis she made him hang a kaiju piñata in the middle of the south wall and a dart board shaped like a kaiju for an overly enthusiastic game of darts. He tried to sit back down but Sasha got a hold of him and dragged him back onto the dance floor.

She was on her fourth circuit when she saw Herman sitting by himself at the back. He had a plate of food, but seemed at a loss for the raucous tablemates around him. Margret whistled sharply and caught the eye of the band leader. She tamped her hand down twice and he dropped the tempo.

"Dr. Gottlieb," she extended her hand to him. "Do me the honor?"

"I don't dance."

"You do at Mess Night or you drink. And…" Margret glanced back at the bowl of grog, there were things floating in it that she wasn't entirely sure were edible. "I'd recommend against that. Clear-D kills the buzz but not the upset stomach."

He limped out onto the floor with her. Margret had shed the heels for more practical combat boots. The funny look he gave them matched the funny look she gave his bowtie. Mess Nights were typically not formal. People were supposed to wear what made them happy. For Herman, the bowtie could stand.

The accordion throbbed a solo beat as she rested her hands on his shoulders. He shuffled the cane back and forth between his hands until she took it and hung it across the back of her wrist. Someone had wheeled in a keyboard and set it to piano, it joined the accordion with a simply melody.

"I may fall."

"Only if you try to dance alone." She reminded him. A tech that she didn't recognize started crooning a song and a few other couples moved out to join them. "At this rate we'll have you racking up conquests like Tendo before the end of the month."

"I doubt that." He blushed.

They danced while the man sang and Margret insisted that he take a shot of vodka as a tray was carried through the dancers. She downed her own and giggled helplessly as he coughed at the burn of alcohol.

"I prefer a good cognac. That tastes like rubbing alcohol." Herman looked as though he wanted to scrape the top layer of his tongue off. "No wonder the Russians are insane."

"It gets very cold in Siberia." She struggled to contain herself as Herc appeared behind Herman's shoulder and tapped on it. There was a young woman behind him, Striker Eureka's crew, who enjoined Herman to dance with her while Margret stared at the older man.

His blue eyes seemed very intense to her as he waited for her to accept. "Its just like sticky hands."

"I meant to apologize to you. My earlier behavior was unprofessional and out of line." The words rushed over each other as she tried to get them out. "I will, of course, meet anyone you recommend as a potential co-pilot."

"Margret," he started. "That's not what I came to say."

"I was embarrassed. I know that it was three years ago, but I'm still embarrassed by what happened. That I misunderstood your…"

"You don't have to."

She blushed fiercely again and wrapped her arms around her waist. The vodka suddenly seemed like it had been too much from the first drink. "Please excuse me, I'm breaking Mess Night rules." She walked away from him before she could sink herself any deeper into the morass of self-pity that threatened to swamp her. There was always a crowd around the grog bowl and she pushed her way through.

A voice from behind said softly. "Does he know you have a crush on him?"

"It's a little more complicated than that." Margret snapped back as she scooped herself a cupful of grog.

"Is it now?"

The voice finally came through clearly enough that she heard the Australian accent and her pit grew a little deeper. Chuck Hansen stood behind her. His head cocked to the side as he considered her and worked something through his mind. "This… is interesting. Mess Nights are more formal back home."

The tempo of the music went back up and half of the dance floor was thunderous with the attempt at clogging. For the most part it seemed to involve a lot of bouncing to the beat with the few serious dancers providing an example that few could match.

"Yes, well, if you want to know what happened, you'll have to ask your father. You have him in the Drift."

"I thought about what you said." He seemed serious and tossed back another vodka as though to garner the courage. "You're right. I can't imagine losing him. I'd never really thought about it until now. Aleksis is the only other Mark I pilot still operational. The others are dead, sick, or retired."

"You'll have Herc for a long time yet. He's not that old."

"What happened between you?"

Margret looked down at the dress she wore, a Mess Night tradition, although usually the host was male. It seemed like a lie to the world that she might be beautiful.

"Your father picked me up when he was on tour in Siberia. There was this crazy old bar just outside of the Shatterdome that all pilot candidates went to. I was partnered with Yoshi but it was…platonic. So I met Herc and we had a few drinks and went back to his room." Margret's voice lost strength. "He was polite, but when I took my clothes off, he asked me to leave. These," she showed him her arms. "Cover thirty percent of my body. I can understand why he changed his mind."

"He didn't say that was why. Did he?" Even Chuck seemed taken aback.

"No one gives you a script for that kind of situation." She refused to cry. "I can't undo them. They are me. I just hadn't had anyone respond so coldly. I guess you both have your fair share of Jaegerflies down in Oz. They wouldn't have my kind of scars."

Margret considered another glass of grog even as her stomach burned in protest. An alarm went off overhead, almost lost behind the paper lanterns still burning brightly. "Oh god. _Kaiju_."


	9. Chapter 9: When We Fall

**2300 hours**

**Double Event: Otachi and Leatherback **

* * *

Mess Night scattered. Pilots ran for their flight suits. Mechanics to their last minute system checks. Anyone who hadn't taken their Clear-D, swallowed it dry and grimaced at the taste. Five minutes to hit the bloodstream, fifteen for full effect.

Margret ran for the locker on the side of the bay. She'd stashed her coveralls there during the prep for Mess Night. Disregarding the others around her, she swapped clothes and dashed for the LOCCENT.

Pentecost glanced up as she arrived and handed her a set of earphones. "Field Marshall, you're point person with the Hong Kong Garrison. I want eyes on those kaiju now."

The coordination of military response was frantic and efficient. She worked rapidly between several sets of computers while Tendo and Pentecost briefed those behind her. The sound-canceling effects let her concentrate on the radio chatter. The choppers got the first vague images of Otachi and Leatherback surging through the water. _Huge_, cried a pilot in Chinese, _they are huge_!

The press of people subsided as the pilots and their immediate support crews departed. Tendo sent the incoming calls through to her. In short order, Margret answered brief inquiries from the President of the United States, the Russian Prime Minister, and the Chinese Leader. The North Korean army sent a brief offer of nuclear support which she politely declined, their nukes had a tendency to veer off-course to try to strike South Korea.

She could see the radar screens as Cherno and Crimson Typhoon hit the water less than a half mile from the kaijus. The command controls for the entire base were at her hands and she rerouted power from the substation to Bay 13 and gave a single line of code that would undoubtedly get her fired. Several calls went out to bring in a fuel resupply the F14s on their way in-bound and she continued to monitor the evacuation proceedings in Hong Kong proper. It was 70% complete when Cherno engaged Otachi. Crimson followed into the battle.

The damage reports displayed on her screens and she wrenched the insignia out of her coverall's collar and set them on the desk in front of her. She grabbed the man next to her and swapped his earphones out with hers. Ygor and Debey were at the back of the room and she grabbed them by the hand and dragged them out of the LOCCENT and commandeered the first cart they found.

"Will the buffers hold?"

Ygor's eyes darkened and his face drew into a frown. "Yes."

Debey glanced between the two of them as Margret drove the cart through a hard turn. The wheels screeched and threw black smoke into the air as she stomped down on the pedals hard. "Wait, even with three of us…"

She tensed her hands as they flew past another intersection. "Those are our friends out there. And we need them if the Marshall's plan has any chance of succeeding." The cart shrieked as she slammed on the brakes and they exited it at the doors to the bay. "Chuck said something about Yoshi and I being unbalanced, that I was taking the brunt of Foxtrot's neural signal. If I could do it with him, I can do it with you two backing me up."

Ygor searched her eyes and nodded once. "We will."

Debey hesitated for a second longer but nodded. "We will."

The power sparked and died. The corridor was pitch black and after a short hum, the emergency red lights started to cycle up. Ygor glanced around and swore. "EMP. Goddamned kaiji, how could they set off an electro-magnetic pulse."

"Will the bay's shielding have protected Foxtrot?"

"Yes." Struggling the three of them popped the emergency override box and levered their weight against the manual release. The doors weighed almost two hundred pounds with mechanical assist. It took them several long minutes to wedge enough width to squeeze through. "But if another one goes, she'll be vulnerable."

Margret grinned as she looked up at the orange jaeger. Her shell glowed with a deep and fiery light and beckoned them forward. "So we'll have to take care of that."

* * *

"On my mark. Three… Two... One… Initiating drift."

Foxtrot rocked in her moorings as she came to life. Then with a slow and ponderous beauty one foot rose above the ground and then took a step towards the edge of the Shatterdome. One fist clenched and came in tight to her side as the jaeger gave an emphatic '_yes!' _as she moved for the first time in two years.

The bay doors rose almost three hundred feet above her metal helmet and she ducked her head slightly as she went under them. Usually a crawler would bring her from the bay to the flight deck where heavy lifting cables would connect to the support rings built into the shoulder plates of her armor. This time there were no choppers waiting for her, or even any that noticed her as she stepped off the edge of the platform and leapt into the water of the bay. It splashed around her ankles as she oriented herself towards the battle and began striding in its direction. Her footfalls were immense and driving, shaking the pylons and small boats that congregated around the Shatterdome with each movement.

Huge spotlights raked the darkness as she continued on and then missed a step when her calls to Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha went unanswered. She stumbled but recovered. In the distance she could see Striker Eureka immobilized and the hulking shadow of a kaiju next to it. She tilted her visor sideways to see a blue behemoth headed on an intercept path. One gauntlet raised up and saluted Gipsy Danger who was startled but returned the gesture.

Foxtrot continued on, picking up speed as she saw Leatherback contemplating how to destroy the jaeger. Each step pistoned her legs faster and she drew ahead of Gipsy as tiny flares burst into light on Leatherback's face. Their radiance highlighted the miniature human forms standing on Eureka's head.

Leatherback screamed its displeasure.

Foxtrot leapt.

The kaiju turned in surprise and took her entire weight as she flew across five hundred feet and hammered her fists next to either ear. The both went down under the waves, a swirling mass of bubbles and chaos as Foxtrot tried to box its ears again and missed in the slippery deep. Leatherback grabbed ahold of her waist and slammed her down into the water. Foxtrot pressed against the silt of the sand and seemed to grin a bit as her shoulders rotated to face the other direction and shoved the kaiju away with all of her strength.

She pushed off the silt and large steel blades sprang open along her forearms. Foxtrot grabbed Leatherback and pulled her arms against its body, dragging the blades through the thick hide and drawing blood. Trapped by her grip, the kaiju sought to trample her but Foxtrot sank her weight deep and moved with the force. Leatherback shrilled angrily and the skull flaps on the back of its head rose into a threatening position as electricity sparked between them.

Her helmet tilted sideways slightly as the light from Gipsy illuminated them. She released Leatherback and stepped out of the way as Gipsy charged into the fray. Gipsy's blue shell looked almost black in the darkness except where Leatherback's fluorescence glowed against her. Gipsy hammered down again, delaying the kaiju from releasing another EMP.

Foxtrot leaned in, took a hard punch to the helmet, and came back again, driving her fingers deep into the frond of fleshy appendages. Electricity ran up her hand and forearm and made her take a single stuttered step backwards. She didn't let go. She yanked and a handful came free. Leatherback screamed again and threw its body over backwards.

The impact knocked Foxtrot down. The enraged the kaiju grabbed ahold of Gipsy Danger and threw it towards the Hong Kong port. It glanced back once at the frothy sea where Foxtrot went down but there was no sign of the jaeger.

* * *

One minute passed…

Gipsy fought Leatherback back and forth across land.

Four minutes passed…

Gipsy confirmed that Leatherback, indeed, had no pulse.

Six minutes passed…

The two men on top of Striker Eureka continued to fire flares into the sky as though the raining light would reveal the depths of the water around them.

Ten minutes passed…

Gipsy engaged Otachi. Sometimes through the use of errant cargo ships. They were well matched but Gipsy was still in the fight and undaunted.

Twelve minutes passed…

The water around Striker Eureka was smooth and glass-like one moment and the next, an orange skull breached it with terrible slowness. Foxtrot regained her feet and surveyed the still standing Striker as well as the fight in the distance.

Choppers buzzed in around her shoulders as she directed them to drop cables and clipped them into the shoulders as the two men scrambled back inside of Striker's head. They couldn't communicate with the jaeger, but Chuck gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up and clapped his father on the back repeatedly as Foxtrot moved around them. When the cables were secure, she leaned over slightly as though she was very tired, but just as quickly straightened. Her footsteps, guided by sonar, took her to the carcass of Cherno Alpha and she squatted to gather the wreckage and lift it.

Instead of focusing on the shattered hulk, she reached inside and removed the crushed nuclear reactor core. It would not eliminate all the radioactivity, but it was the best she could do as she reburied it deep within the seabed.

Then step after step she carried Cherno back to the Shatterdome.

The choppers flew Striker Eureka past her as she returned for Crimson Typhoon. This time she stopped twice as though to rest. She laid the second jaeger next to Cherno and hooked her fingers into the top of the flight deck. Her pressure and weight punched heavy divots into the decking as she levered herself up and out of the sea.

She took one step towards her bay and another more slowly.

There was a fireball behind her as Gipsy dropped back through the stratosphere. Foxtrot turned to look through the driving rain and saw the crowd on another platform also watching Gipsy fall. Her weight slowly took her to her knees as she watched the only remaining jaeger plummet towards Hong Kong. She placed one hand in front of her to stabilize.

In the sky above, Gipsy blew her rockets to slow her fall. She hit the stadium. The ground around it exploded from the impact, but she survived and rose to her feet from amidst the swirling sand and debris.

Foxtrot seemed to smile slightly as she stiffened and froze into place.

* * *

"Get them out of there! Are there any life-signs? Don't fucking touch me! I'm fine." A voice shouted through the darkness.

Technicians breached Foxtrot's helmet and let the responding team enter. Herc and Pentecost came through, the former still in his black suit.

Ygor was unhelmeted as rose up from the floor. Tears streaked his cheeks and Debey's behind him. He carried Margret toward Herc even as he hiccupped with deep sobs. Even tucked tightly against his chest, blood covered Marget's face where it ran from her eyes and ears and nose. She did not move as Ygor carried her, did not seem to breathe. Even Pentecost closed his eyes with defeat. Herc seemed at a loss for action and would have taken her body except it was obvious that Ygor would not give her up.

"She knew the dangers of the neural load. Why?"

"To protect the mission." Ygor said. "To protect…" He couldn't continue as medics tried to wrest her body away from him. He refused to release her until Debey said something too quietly to hear.

"Goddamn you." He snarled at Pentecost. "Goddamn you for…." He burst into tears as Debey grabbed him in a tight hug. The two mechanics watched their pilot, Foxtrot's pilot, leave the jaeger like all the pilots before her.


	10. Chapter 10: Aftermath

**Chapter 10: Aftermath**

**+2 days Triple Event**

* * *

Ranger Pilots Deceased: _Stacker Pentecost, Charles 'Chuck' Hansen, Sasha Kaidonovsky, Aleksis Kaidonovsky, Hu Wei, Cheung Wei, Li Wei_

Ranger Pilots Injured: _Henry 'Herc' Hansen, Margret O'Donnell_

Acting Marshalls: _Commander Hank Ironside, Colonel Dai Nguyen_

Active Jaegers: _None_

* * *

"What is our status?" The British Prime Minister asked. Her head was in her hands and she looked two days shy of sleep.

Commander Ironside stepped to the center of the room. He was a man closer to 65 and no longer the fit pilot who'd stepped into a Mark I Jaeger as part of the initial pilot teams after Dr. Schoenfeld and Dr. Lightcap. His dark hair was greyer now, and his shirt strained at the waistband. He did not wear the Ranger uniform but a khaki button-up over darker cargo pants. He surveyed the world leaders who were present and pressed his hand down over the table's holographic projector. Colonel Nguyen watched from the side, a severe-faced Vietnamese man who'd maintained a trim figure but walked with a pronounced limp. He stood with Herc Hansen and Newton Geizler. The latter bounced up and down on his toes nervously and tried to talk as Herc continually silenced him.

"You can see our status." Ironside grumbled. "The Breach is closed but at such cost. We're transporting the three museum jaegers to Hong Kong as we speak. Refit for each could take as little as three months or as many as six. The Detroit factories have started pouring molds for Gipsy Danger and Russian has a new model underway." He nodded to those respective countries. "China has received the remnants of Crimson Typhoon and promises that she will be rebuilt in no more than seven months. They already have another trio who are primary candidates for her."

"What about Foxtrot Alpha?" His slow gaze speared the Australian Prime Minister but Woljamiri did not look away. "You do not include Foxtrot Alpha due to her pilot's injury, but she is undamaged."

"The problem has more to do with her neural load. I cannot risk more pilots in her. The plan is to hard-strip her and rig new internal architecture. It will take a year minimum."

"Has Ranger O'Donnell regained consciousness?"

"No," his answer hammered through the room. "I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Geizler. He was the man who drifted with the kaiju brain."

"Twice." Newt corrected him. "I drifted with a kaiju brain twice." He ate up the attention as he moved to the center of the room. "I've told this story before, but I saw the Overlords. They're coming. Sooner probably than later. The Breach technology is something they're very, very good at."

"Are you saying that a second Breach is imminent? That the Marshall's attack didn't work? That cost us our two strongest jaegers!"

"Well," he started to waffle. "I don't know how much damage the overload of Gipsy Danger caused. Theoretically it destroyed the base of the Breach technology. I mean, the only way I would have to verify, would be to drift with another kaiju. I mean, I'm pretty much your best choice for that, except we don't have a brain. I drifted with the ones we did have but they're…"

"Focus please, Doctor."

The door slammed open and the men and women present startled at the intrusion. Mako and Raleigh stood there, both in black sweaters and black fatigue pants, but it wasn't just the clothes that made them unmistakably a team. Gipsy Danger's insignia marked both of them. Their strides matched. They were a unified front.

"Rangers." Ironside straightened. "Your presence is not required at this briefing."

"Excuse me, Marshall. Mako and I are the only humans who've seen the Anteverse. I think you'll want to hear what we have to say."

"The Anteverse?" President Harkin asked. "What in god's name is that? The place where the aliens are? Who the hell named it that?"

Newt raised a timid hand. "That would be me."

"Beckett," Ironside warned again. He was a man who liked his orders followed.

"Marshall, I must insist."

"Let them stay." Colonel Nguyen spoke for the first time. "I think we should hear it." But it was not Raleigh who spoke.

Mako's voice was clear but quiet. "The Anteverse that we saw. It was not the entire thing. It felt like a base of operations for sending the kaiju through the Breach, but it would be a mistake to think we dealt them a significant blow."

"You don't know that!" Newt shouted in a high voice. "I saw through the kaiju."

"You saw what the kaiju saw. They were weapons. Limited weapons." Raleigh pulled a small thumb drive from his pocket. "Mako and I redrew the schematics that we could recall along with the kaiju that were being bio-printed as we dropped."

"No one's recall is that good." Newt's thunder had been stolen.

"Two brains, we can fill in the blank pieces that the other missed." Raleigh answered. "And we can assume that any PPDC plans that Dr. Geizler had in his brain are in our enemies' hands. Every drift goes both ways."

"Are we in danger of echoes? Could they have continued linkage through the Breach?"

"Unknown. It would seem prudent to restrict Dr. Geizler from PPDC defense plans until we can determine the extent of contamination." Ironside answered as Newt cast about for a champion amongst those present.

"Herman drifted with me too! His brain is just as contaminated."

"And Dr. Gottlieb as well."

Newt's face crumpled as he realized that his plan had worked exactly as he'd intended. He glanced around one more time. "Am I restricted from the Shatterdome?"

"I think we can confine you to quarters until the doctor has had a chance to run a full work-up. Hansen, if you would see the Doctor out."

* * *

Ygor rifled through Margret's quarters efficiently. It made no sense to toss her belongings even if the rage inside of him demanded some sort of release. The card wasn't easily found. He'd tried her desk and the engineering specs for Foxtrot made him smile bitterly. He sat in her chair and put his head in his hands. The experience of the drift and the subsequent memories were fleeting.

He remembered laying underneath the water. Their lights had punched up from the darkness on the undulating current above them. High above that he could see bright red stars falling again and again as though the world wept.

He remembered the fires outside of Debey's home in the mountains before they'd moved towards the city. The water of the village was poisoned by kaiju blue. But the bonfires trailed them down the mountains as they packed their homes onto the heavy boned goats and horses. Fires everywhere.

"You okay?"

Ygor jumped. Herc stood in the doorway, leaning against it tiredly, his arm still in the soft cast and sling. They were of the same age, but for the first time, Ygor thought he might be taken for the younger man. Chuck's death weighed heavily on his father.

"Just trying to find this card Tendo gave her." Ygor sighed. "Doc Cheng says there's nothing he can do. So I figured I would see if this Driftzone research had anything. I know she put it in here, but Mags… Mags has…" He couldn't finish. "Everything went so fast those last two days."

"Everything did." Herc agreed softly. "And we all ran out of time to say things that needed saying." He stepped past Ygor and reached into the locker. A Foxtrot Alpha leather coat hung there, the fox peeking out between the folds of leather as though she were hunting something. The card was tucked inside the pocket and Herc handed it to Ygor who looked at it stunned.

"Are you sure this is legitimate?"

"I don't care anymore." Ygor took it and slid it into his pocket. "Would you?" He restrained himself from adding the obvious. What if it were his son?

"No, not for one moment."

* * *

The bagpipe wailed a lament as the procession entered the bay of the Shatterdome. It rose with a tremble and the bass drum began a beat that the procession followed. The walls rang with the sound of a thousand footsteps in slow and ceremonious harmony. They carried the souls of the dead with them as they moved towards the black flags that draped the center of bay. Discrete cameramen filmed from the higher catwalks but were not allowed near the respectful masses that bore their dead to their final rest.

Seven caskets.

The black flags each bore the sigil of those that had fallen. Crimson Typhoon. Eureka Striker. Cherno Alpha. They hung straight as the parade stopped beneath them and the flags were lowered. The crews gathered up the black material and snapped it tight over the top of each casket and laid it in place.

The ranks opened to let the Marshalls through their center. Ironside and Nguyen were flanked by Herc Hansen but then the older men paused to let him through. They'd seen their fair share of services, but neither had ever faced Herc's reality. The loss of a son.

He stepped forward and reached up for the flag. If his hands trembled as he gathered it, no one would ever mention it. If he struggled to maintain his composure, not a single camera caught the image. His grief was still private even as the world watched. He smoothed the wrinkles out of the edge of the material and his hand paused briefly on the center.

"Goodbye, son." He whispered as the bagpipe faded.

Two men stepped forward of the piper and sang low notes against the muffled wail of the pipes. "_Gafflwn Dihenydd, o'r fuddugol yn wiriol sydd_."

Herc led the salute and behind him, hands snapped into place one by one.

"_Ni fydd neb yn ein Drechu, Falch ydy ni i drochu_,"

The drums kept their time, a funeral dirge that led ever onward.

"_Traed o flaen i'r Annwn, mewn y gwybodaeth fe godwn ni_."

As the first chorus ended, seven more men stepped forward and joined their voices, and those who knew the Welsh, knew the words and why they mattered, joined in. Herc sang and his voice rang out stridently. He knew that the words would never be heard by the kaiju's masters, but they were not meant for them.

* * *

Despite the size of the echoing Shatterdome and its long empty hallways, the voices of those singing and the sad cry of the pipes traveled through the air to the quiet hum of the medical bay. It overpowered the whistles and beeps of the machinery around the bed. There was a soft steady hum of breath from the sleeping dog who lay across the foot of it. Max raised his broad head at the noise and then turned back towards the woman he lay near. She made no sign of hearing it. With a deep sigh he laid his head back between his paws and let the words wash over the both of them.

* * *

**The song is stolen from the ODST trailer "Life". The translation of the lyrics is: "****_We cheat Death from his rightful victory. No one can defeat us we are glad to plunge feet first into hell in the knowledge that we will rise._****"**

**Can't say I don't wonder if anyone is enjoying this. How's that for a double negative? I'm carousing around in here with lots more to come. Let me know if this is about as thrilling as a series of concussions. Or maybe a little more fun (than concussions that is).**


	11. Chapter 11: Interim

**Chapter 11: Interim**

**+4 days Kaiju attack**

* * *

Three choppers set down. They'd picked up their cargo at the Hong Kong airport and radioed back with their arrival times. The arrival of pilots and pilot candidates meant all hands on deck even if all hands only meant the Gipsy Danger pilots. Mako, and Raleigh waited in the overcast morning for the big Sikorsky helicopters to set down. The driving force of the blades drove Mako's hair in sweeping circles around her head and she pinned it back with one hand.

"Still think you should buzz it." Raleigh grinned at her irritated look. "Just saying."

The first set of doors opened and the candidates spilled out. Thirty-three total candidates for jaegers they didn't have. Herc's instructions were clear, Mako and Raleigh were in charge. Mako had the title of Commander and Raleigh, her lieutenant.

The man at the front of the crowd was easily forty pounds heavier than Raleigh although the two men were of the same height as he drew close. Heavily inked biceps flexed as he saluted Mako casually and tossed his bag down. "Joseph Temura." He said to Mako. "Commander Mori."

"Mr. Temura." Mako lips turned up as she struggled to control her smile and Raleigh bristled slightly to see it. Joseph had broad open features, a man who looked like he was used to charming every woman he met. "It is a pleasure. Herc has spoken highly of you."

"Yeah," he glanced around and extended a hand to Raleigh. "Raleigh Beckett right? Heard that fight with Otachi was something to see."

"I get points for the ship, but the final sword thrust was all Mako."

"So I heard." The charm turned on again, but then Temura grew more serious as the other candidates began to cluster around the small group. "I thought Herc would be here. Isn't he in charge of the Shatterdome's training command?"

"I am the Training Commander." Mako answered.

"And Herc?"

"He is otherwise occupied."

* * *

His footsteps sounded overloud as he walked through the Shatterdome. The doctors had let him take off the sling but his arm was still contained in a soft cast. Another two weeks of no duty and then another two months of limited. It rankled to remember that it was his single decision that had cost him his arm and his son. Another part of him argued that it was the logical decision to try to reboot Striker Eureka, but that voice was often overruled.

Joseph Temura was on his way. Herc had promised Margret that the man was a possible candidate for Foxtrot and she'd been so angry with him. That hurt too. It ran on repeat with the memory of her in Chuck's mind. Chuck's memory was tinged with disappointment as Margret told him her version of events. She hadn't told Herc - even when he'd tried to apologize. She pushed him away. And finally he understood why.

Chuck had known both sides before he died. An unexpected intimacy the drift gave them, when the son gave the father advice.

"Max." Herc called to the dog as he entered the medical bay. The bulldog stirred and got up from the floor, his tail wagging as he left the bedside and trotted to his master. "Here boy, good dog."

"He keeps watch over her. Your doing?" Ygor asked thickly. The mechanic rose from the chair and rubbed at his stubbled chin.

"Yes."

"So why are you here?"

"You didn't go to the Driftzone?"

"Ironside wouldn't give me permission. He said that it would be cruel to experiment on her. _Asshole_. _Anything would be better than this_." Ygor didn't notice he'd switched to Russian halfway through.

"Do you need his permission?"

"I speak mechanical, I don't speak science. You?"

Herc shook his head. "No, but I know someone who does." He patted Max again as a nurse came in to check on the visitors and was flattered into taking the dog out for a short walk. Ygor stepped outside, but Herc moved closer to the bed. An oxygen tube was threaded into Margret's nostrils but she hadn't needed a ventilator, not yet. She was in a coma and they'd started treating her as if she'd never get up again, moving her arms and legs in false approximations of movement. Her heartbeat continued with an even rhythm and he leaned over her to put his hand against the skin of her arm. She was warm but did not respond.

"I'm sorry," he told her although she could not hear. "I will explain it to you. I promise."

* * *

Bone Town was traced with new scars where Otachi's body had fallen and then again where the infant Otachi clone had died. The only thing not scavenged was the giant backbone and ribcage. Even Chau's men didn't bother to tackle the immense size of those bones. Stripped, pennants and banners already hung from the tips and the Shinja's logo was painted on the base of the skeleton. The kaiju worshippers had already claimed it for themselves and nothing had been built around the black and dripping logo, nothing would be until they began to construct the altar.

Herc seemed unmoved by the kaiju blue in the air but Herman snuffled and wiped his nose again and again. They made an unorthodox group as they picked their way through the rubble.

Herman glanced at the card Ygor held. "Why does every shady dealer in Hong Kong use a card?"

A heavily made up woman selling fisk sticks smacked her lips at him and kicked a box in their direction. It was full of cards that advertised everything: naked girls, clubs, vasectomies at half price. Herman shuddered and declined to take any.

"It's here." Ygor pointed to the next street and the three men found the correct door and entered.

They hesitated just inside. A receptionist looked up from the desk and acknowledged them even as she continued with a rapid Mandarin conversation for another minute. Ygor caught three words that he knew and none of them more complicated than 'thank you'. The office looked like a dentist's lobby. Sterile, bare, and more Western than any place they'd seen in Bone Town. It looked out of place and a little bit creepy.

"Ni hao." She greeted them. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No," Ygor shuffled his feet and then stepped in front of them. He clasped his hands together awkwardly. "I would like to see whoever runs this place. I am Ygor Dmitrivich. I heard that you have a cure for neural scarring."

The receptionist pursed her lips. She was young, probably only twenty or twenty-one. It might have been the weirdest thing she'd heard that day but probably not in her career. "You'll need an appointment."

"I don't have time for an appointment." Ygor snapped. "It is a matter of life and death."

"Mr. Dmitrivich," Herman tried to calm him down. "Perhaps if we explained…"

The door behind the girl opened and three very large Chinese men stepped through. Each one was over six feet and two would tip the scales at over 250 pounds. They fit the expectation of sleaze much better than the clinical office.

"_Problem_?" One asked the girl.

"There's no problem." Herman intervened. "We are merely trying to determine if there is a scientist here who has experience with neural scarring from drifting. We are not from the government. Well, we are from the government, but not in the way you might think."

Herc sighed, his Chinese was minimal at best. "_The pilot of Foxtrot Alpha is in a coma_. _We were told you could help._" He didn't know the word for coma so he did the best he could and called it 'bad sleep' which was nonsense unless they could follow the jist of what he was trying to get across.

"Foxtrot Alpha?" The biggest man turned to the girl and whispered back and forth with her for a moment. He glanced up. "_Wait_." And vanished into the back.

"Did that work?" Herman seemed unsure of himself. "Are we supposed to be so forthcoming with information?"

"Mags will not get better if we play it safe." Ygor grunted.

"Yes well, the last time I took a risk, I melted part of my own brain, saved the world, and got expelled from my own laboratory as compensation. I'm feeling particularly risk averse these days." Herman harrumphed. "I looked into the DARPA data that I still had access to. The neural patterning of jaeger pilots is unique but virtually unstudied."

"We were too busy fighting kaiju."

The look Herman gave Herc was less than impressed. "DARPA locked down research. Once it worked, the PPDC didn't want to know what the side effects were. The technology was restricted and that is why we are here and not treating Margret ourselves."

"An elegant summation." The man who spoke walked through the door on the heels of one of the bodyguards. He was a heavy set Chinese man with thick eyebrows and a rolling set to his walk that made him seem more sailor than landlubber. "I'm intrigued by the group of you, and by why you're here. Come into the back."

"Do you have a cure?" Ygor couldn't restrain himself.

The man cocked one eyebrow and lifted a thick hand. Scars were traced all around the thumb and fingers as though he'd dragged the digits through glass. He beckoned for them to follow him. "You shouldn't move through the world like that. Hannibal Chau will sell you a cure for dollars on the pound and laugh all the way to the bank while you eat kaiju bile."

"Then what are you selling?" Herc asked.

"Pure sugar." He chuckled heartily at their discomfort. "Come, come. And see why I think that's a good thing."


	12. Chapter 12: Gimme Some Sugar

**Warning: **Although I've tried to keep to canon as I've had access to it (PR movie and Tales from Year Zero), but I've taken liberties with the kaiju Okami-oni (Chapter 1), Shrike (Chapter 6) Honenuki and which battle Eden Assassin fell in. The end is not canon, except in my universe.

* * *

**Chapter 12: Gimme Some Sugar**

**+4 days Triple Event**

* * *

Max lifted his head as her hand twitched on the bed. His tail thumped hopefully until he realized that the movements were unconscious. The woman, he liked women, they were shorter and remembered to pet him and usually had treats once they got to know him. This one would not wake up no matter how much he nudged her to.

Her hand lifted, this time all the way off the bed. Max didn't like the sensation that she was awake but not awake. It made the hair on the back of his neck raise the hackles. He jumped down and barked at the woman once.

Her heart-beat began to race across the monitor and Max barked harder, louder. He was anxious now and barking as hard as he could as the EKG monitor shrilled a high warning and began to spill paper in wave after wave as her neural activity spiked higher and higher.

* * *

"I'm Teddy Zhang." The man kept a few feet in front of them as he led them deeper into what was now obvious as a complex. One-way glass in the hallways looked onto scenes more reminiscent of what they'd originally expected. Dark clubs where patrons wore neural connections and writhed about on open platforms with little to no clothing on. Smoky environments where bed after bed was filled with linked in dreamers who did not move. Another location where a woman wore a neural connection by herself as men and women watched her from an audience while they drank whiskey and smoked.

"This place…"

"Is what it is." Zhang admitted. "It's also a willing population of users who need services from both sides of the aisle. I was…am a practicing neurosurgeon and this place needs my services more than any hospital in the world."

"They allow you to experiment on them?"

"When you've burned out your neocortex and are a vegetable, can I do anything worse than what you've already done to yourself?" Zhang snorted. "I trained in Vienna and if you want to see our records, we follow all Nuremburg guidelines. I even do double-blind studies that would rock the PPDC and neuroscience if the Americans would release the research ban on drift technology."

He led them down another branching hallway and into a laboratory space. Two men were hooked into MRI-type scanners and working through cognitive tests when he entered. The latter tried to wave a greeting but did not have use of his hand or the left side of his face.

"Regarding your pilot, Margret O'Donnell, I know she's in a coma. Her higher brain activity has irregular function. Complete neural overload from drifting. You don't want my help. No problem. The door is just to your rear and all the way out." He stopped in front of a large computer screen and pressed the enter button. It made the screen warm and start to wake.

"What did you mean by sugar?"

Zhang nodded and gestured to the screen. "Real sugar is the brain's powerhouse. An immense amount of glucose is required to run that slab of grey meat between your ears. You want it, you need it, but goddamned if that shit doesn't give you cavities. Everything has a price."

* * *

_The door reverberated with the impact of a hand strike. "Mags! Kaiju!"_

_Margret popped the door open and stared at Yoshi who stared back at her. "Category?"_

_"Two. Eden is backing us up but we're point."_

_She hopped as she fought to get her boots on and grabbed her toothbrush from the tiny sink by the door. "Let's go."_

_"You have time to brush."_

_"I can do it on the way."_

* * *

"Can. You. Help. Her?" Ygor said the words slowly, heavily as though each one took immense effort.

"We've learned some very interesting things from our work here." Zhang pulled a chair out and keyed several commands into the computer. Pictures of brain scans laid out side-by-side. Color-coded reactions began to happen in the brains as he waited for a key moment. It happened and the brain activity went wild. Colors shifted. Areas that were dark went technocolor vibrant and other areas shut down completely.

"These," he pointed to the lower three. "Are what matters to you. I'm going to assume that none of you are especially gifted in neuroscience."

Blank stares answered him.

"Memories are encoded in many ways, but the hippocampus is responsible for episodic memory. Like the memory of when you get married, or when your child is born. It's not just the physical act, but smells, what you heard, how it felt to touch that moment in your hands. It's not a fact, it's an episode of your life. The hippocampus captures those that are important and sends them to long-term storage if they matter enough." He pointed to the hippocampus on the brain scan where it glowed a vivid ultraviolet.

"The amygdala is our emotional core. Fight or flight decisions are made here. If you cut one out of a rat or a human, we cease to fear anything, we also cease to care about anything." His hand moved again to an area of the brain painted scarlet and throbbing as the time stamp continued.

"Drifting supercharges both these areas. Does no one at PPDC wonder why jaeger pilots are so obsessed with the past?"

"There are very few remaining jaeger pilots to ask." Herc answered him. "And like all soldiers, we've seen a lot of combat."

"I dream," Ygor's voice was a little breathless.. "About the night we fought Leatherback. It is like I am there. I have never had dreams like this. I relive that moment again and again."

Zhang's eyes sparked with awareness. "You're one of the four. But you don't actively run the jaeger?"

"Muscle feedback. Two mechanics, two pilots." Ygor's face fell. "One pilot. No one else deserves Foxtrot. Mags is the reason we're here. That is her jaeger."

Many things percolated behind the doctor's eyes but he held them back and instead focused back onto the brains. "Neural scarring isn't actual damage like a burn or a break. The drift is so unique when it hits the brain that it teaches the brain to access drift memories again and again. If it's too much, it's like a rut on the road. It deepens. And then it's very difficult to focus the brain on something else."

"What are you saying?" Ygor struggled with the discussion and where Zhang was trying to lead them.

"He means," Herman said softly. "That Margret is reliving her memories. So much that the current moment does not exist for her. Only the past."

The doctor nodded sadly. "Again and again and again."

* * *

_The helo lift dropped Eden Assassin and Foxtrot Alpha in the clear blue waters of French Riviera. It was as far from the cold winters of Russia as they'd ever seen. The beaches were evacuated, but several big yachts remained in their mooring. There hadn't been time or the manpower to move them out of Honenuki's path. Eden Assessin was a vibrant Kelly green and South Africa's flag painted over her helm. Unlike the lanky profile of Foxtrot, Eden was a blocky jaeger who reminded most people of the Rock-em Sock'em robots. Although most of the jaegers had toy versions of themselves, Eden Assassin was the only one who had a game._

_It was clear and visible even from six miles out. The kaiju called Honenuki was someone's bad idea of an animal. Its head and neck seemed serpentine, birdlike and narrow where it rose up off of broad and rugged shoulders that ended in heavily clawed forelimbs. But at its midsection it shifted again into reptilian hindlimbs, thick and ponderous and shorter than the front limbs. The tail was something different again entirely, equipped with a ridged and barbed tip that rattled as Honenuki grumbled and shrieked its war cry at the two jaegers in its path._

_"Evacuation is only 60% complete. Hold that bitch where she is." Marshall Pentecost's voice was emotional. He'd initiated evacuation orders the moment the kaiju's path seemed likely. The local government declined to evacuate. They cited the disruption to the tourist season. Now they were behind and Honenuki crushed one yacht under its clawed foot and screeched another challenge at them._

_"After you." Came Abebi's voice over the line._

_Foxtrot nodded towards Eden Assassin and strode forward. Her orange shell blinded those watching as the helicopters. Each massive step brought them over the white sand of the beach. Foxtrot avoided buildings but the beach towels and umbrellas crumpled under her feet. Honenuki left the water and she broke into a run, the kaiju turned toward the jaeger as spikes extended from Foxtrot's greaves and her shins._

_Honenuki reared back to take the jaeger's rush and it was like hitting a brick wall. Foxtrot grappled with the beast but the powerful hindlimbs were immovable in the sand. She smashed her forearms into the side of its neck, the spiked metal cutting into kaiju flesh and spilling blue blood onto the sand. The birdlike head whipped around and Foxtrot couldn't get the kaiju into a proper clinch position to throw. The tail whipped again and again at Foxtrot's helmet to blind her._

_Foxtrot released the hold and backed up as Honenuki dropped to the sand and shrieked again. _

_She took one step to the side as Honenuki charged, a thunderous run that shook the ground underneath them. Foxtrot's sidestep took her wide and it seemed that her strike came slowly and too late. There was an audible 'snick' as her forearm swords unsheathed themselves and crossed in what looked like empty space. Honenuki stumbled and cried out as its tail dropped to the sand with a last rattle._

_Foxtrot turned to face it, blades crossed and widened her stance. _

* * *

"This is Yiyi." Teddy Zhang gestured to a man inside a long tube where an MRI was constantly running. "I want to show you him because what I'm going to say next is why you've come."

The brain scans were similar to those they'd been shown. The hippocampus and amygdala were the most dominant sections of the brain. The man himself was frail and withered as though he had been in a coma for much of his life. There was no muscle tone and there were tubes running into him from every angle: feeding tubes in one end, catheters in the other. The pale blue medical gown did little to hide the wasting of his body.

"Yiyi is our failure. He was one of the first users of the Driftzone before my team joined it. He does not exist in our world anymore and we were unable to bring him out."

"But there were other successes?"

"Dr. Gottlieb, there were. I can give you access to our data and the statistics we use. But I want you to understand that I'm not a miracle worker. Yiyi's family donated him to us in exchange for his medical care. To the best of our understanding, he will never wake up, and the longer he stays in the coma, the less capable his brain is of accepting new input. Your pilot has suffered an episode more similar to Yiyi than to most of our users. There is a chance that we will not be able to wake her."

"You have to." The interruption went unnoticed.

"And even if it works, we've seen temporary and permanent memory loss." Teddy patted Yiyi's leg inside of the scanning machine but there was no noticeable brain response from the touch. "My personal opinion is that the person has to want to wake up. Not all of them do. Has her family okayed the treatment?"

Ygor shook his head. "She only has a brother. I have not told him."

Hermann looked up from the data he was skimming. "About the treatment?"

The embarrassment colored his cheeks under his dark beard. "I have not told Liam that Mags was injured. She asked me not to. It's in her personnel file. They're not close."

Zhang's features cooled slightly. "Then this conversation is done, gentlemen. I am aware that I run research without protections, but I am not a butcher either. You may have the brother contact me directly but I will not treat Margret O'Donnell without his permission."

* * *

_Honenuki charged again and as Foxtrot moved to avoid the kaiju, it flipped sideways. The full weight of its back end swung wide like a truck fishtailing and smacked into Foxtrot. The jaeger was thrown almost three football fields. The nearly 1800 pound robot falling like a rag-doll from the blow. Laying the surf and looking up at the sky, the front of Foxtrot's breastplate was dented in, alarms screamed about system overload._

_"Eden." Pentecost's command was unnecessary._

_Eden Assassin stomped through the distance and squared off. Honenuki tried the same barreling run and impaled itself on Eden's fists. Each punch was driven by huge pistons modeled off the pylon drivers that sunk bridge supports in the ocean. They were a little slow but each one was punctuated by devastating impact._

_Slowly and surely Honenuki was driven back._

_Eden followed him despite the distance growing between the battle and the slowly rising Foxtrot Alpha. Eden readied her shoulder missiles to fire when Honenuki rolled backwards over its hind legs. It pulled Eden down on top of it. Off balance and without room to maneuver her arms and no distance for missile lock, Eden looked like a toy scrabbling at Honenuki. The big kaiju lifted the reptilian feet and while it held onto Eden with its front paws, the back legs ripped and tore at Eden._

_Foxtrot was up and running towards them._

_Honenuki struck again and ripped off one hip of Eden. Mechanical debris burst out of the torn socket and high pressure hydraulics fluid spurted across the ground. Eden fired a shoulder rocket and took the brunt of the explosion as much on her as on the kaiju who roared and kicked its feet higher. One heavily toenail punched through the breastplate and into the reactor. Honenuki savagely kicked Eden up and the jaeger was flung away from it._

_Its foot was crippled and kaiju blue stained its chest from the detonation. Foxtrot jumped the remaining distance and came in using her knees to drive the kaiju to the ground. The heavy spikes in her shins punched into the kaiju and pinned them together as Honenuki rolled trying to bring Foxtrot to a better position. Foxtrot rolled underneath the kaiju and shoved the short swords into its body. Honenuki's weight shoved them deeper than Foxtrot's original thrust ever had a chance. Her arms charged and the plasma cannons discharged down the length of the metal. Honenuki's body bucked even more wildly. The kaiju attempted to get back to its feet to dislodge the jaeger still attached, cowboy style, and Foxtrot's cannons discharged again and again._

_Each step Honenuki took, it stumbled. Foxtrot withdrew the blades even as it started to crane its head back at the jaeger. This time the strike sheared off the head. The flexible thin neck severed cleanly in two. Honenuki's head tumbled away. Honenuki took one more step and collapsed to the white sand. Kaiju blue spilled out across it. Under the hot sun, it was obvious that the blood was not nearly as blue as the crystalline water, but the two mixed together and started to disperse as Foxtrot got slowly to her feet to survey the damage._

_Power still crackled along her forearms until she was finally assured of Honenuki's death and she allowed the weapons to power down._

* * *

Herc stared at the number in front of him. He'd asked Ygor to let him make the phone call but now that it was time, he wasn't sure of how to phrase his request to Liam O'Donnell, or why the man would believe him. Margret's file didn't include a current picture, there was no reason to include family who weren't affiliated with the PPDC. What was there was an image from them as children. The aftermath of attacks grouped survivors by family instead of single records. The numbers of wounded and orphaned were too staggering otherwise. Liam had a blank look on his face as he sat in a Red Cross camp with his sister next to him. Both were wrapped in Nuskin and bandages. To his side Margret seemed almost angry. Neither were remarkable, there had been so many with the same story. Mako even, an orphan from Onibaba. Herc's wife, Chuck's mother. All kaiju victims.

"Tell him why we need her." Ygor insisted when he gave him the number. "Make him understand."

But what was harder to quantify was what Herc was going to say. Foxtrot needed her as long as they could find another pilot. Ygor wanted her back because she was a part of his crew. The PPDC needed her to protect the world until the first rehabbed jaegers were active. He wanted her back for another reason entirely.

His hand rested on the phone. It would be easier to be honest with a stranger than the woman who needed to hear what he had to say.

0-1-402-

Someone pounded on his door. It didn't pause but got louder and more intense. Herc set the phone down and spun the airlock open.

Tendo stared back at him. The man was breathing hard and looked on the verge of passing out. "Medical." He gasped. "Get to medical."

Herc didn't wait for him. He ran. He sprinted down the corridors, bypassed the elevators and ran the two flights of stairs at a dead run. The crowd thickened as he got close.

"Make way!" He shouted at them. "Make a hole!" The crowd parted and he skidded through the entrance. Several doctors glanced up in surprise as he searched for the reason. "Is she?" He knew what he needed to ask next. _Is she dead?_

"Dad?"

Herc felt the blood rush away from his brain. He stared in disbelief as Chuck walked through the doorway. His face was sunburned and peeling, his lips chapped and bloody. There was a huge IV bag of fluids in his arms and he wore a shapeless hospital gown but he was alive.

"Chuck?" He wasn't sure he'd said it so he tried again. "Chuck?"

"Not sure how radioactive I am." Chuck laughed tiredly. "Can't be any worse than this sunburn."

Herc lunged and caught him in his arms. Sunburn or no sunburn, his son was back. He hugged him so hard that Chuck protested but Herc refused to let go. He laughed and cried at the same time. Chuck was alive.


	13. Chapter 13: A Turning Point

**Chapter 13: A Turning Point**

**+15 days Kaiju Event**

* * *

"That's it." Teddy Zhang pushed back from the computer and sighed. The bag of translucent pink liquid sluiced into Margret's arm but there was no corresponding response from the brain scan. She lived deep within her own memories but gave no sign that she knew they were there. Five days of treatment. No results.

The scans remained resolutely that of a pilot in the drift. Except she was adrift, unmoored.

"What do we do now?"

"Nothing I can do," it pained the doctor to admit it and he started to gather up his paperwork from the desk. "I'll contact Mr. O'Donnell and see if he wants her to remain here in the Shatterdome or transfer her to my facility. There's always a chance that we'll find something."

Hermann's face fell. "I don't see how we can give up." He shuffled the papers but the math stared him in the face with a blunt truth. Everything said give up. Every math problem he did, the only thing that Ironside would let him work on, confirmed that Margret's chances had faded with each passing day. At least he had work, Newton climbed the walls of his quarters in increasingly manic episodes, but the only alternative the Marshalls had offered was exile. At least Hermann could spend time with Zhang, disabled pilots weren't thought to be an active threat.

"If only," he murmured. "There was a way to go in after her."

Zhang glanced up and then his jaw slowly dropped. "What did you say?"

"I just meant…"

"We never tried that. Most of our patients are solo drifts. Compatibility, well you know how hard it can be to find a matched pair."

Hermann nodded. "Is it even possible?"

"We can find out."

* * *

The conference room was full. Ironside and Nguyen presided over the table with weary gravitas. Puma Real's refit was going badly and the jaeger was more pieces than recognizable mechanical parts. Mako and Raleigh sat near each other, although they were dressed casually in light of their flight to the Detroit factory. The trip was to allow Mako to oversee component design in Gipsy 2.0. Herc sat next to his son. Chuck wasn't considered active duty yet. Despite the lack of obvious physical trauma from surviving the nuclear explosion, he'd suffered serious radiation exposure. The medications he took to halt DNA damage also made his skin look ready to slough off. The heavy creams they used to prevent _that_ made him look greased. Herc's face was conflicted as though his feelings were held tightly at bay. Ygor and Debey looked like they felt out of place, both had come straight from the Bay with heavy grease stains marking them. The last two men in the room were Hermann, who had started to let his hair grow out down the back of his head and Joseph Temura. Next to the bigger New Zealander, Hermann looked like he needed to be fed several large sandwiches sooner than later.

Hermann cleared his throat. "We have an idea."

"A solution?" Ironside asked.

"A chance." Hermann parried. "Margret O'Donnell is trapped in the past, but I think there is a chance that she doesn't know that. She doesn't give up. But if those moments feel real to her, feel immediate, then she won't back away from them because she thinks she's fighting those battles right now."

"Do you have any evidence?" Ironside didn't buy it. His forehead creased with concern and he sat down heavily. He'd been a handsome man when he was younger although always with the receding hairline and the large circular scar next to his eye. Those who knew him knew it was the result of a barfight, the others thought it a distinguished and eye-catching scar. He rubbed at it with one hand. "I'm sorry we lost O'Donnell, but there is a time and a place to mourn and move on. We passed it."

"No!" Hermann's shout surprised him and he bobbled a bit to try and hide the emotion. "I will not give up yet and you should not expect any man here to do so. Half of our pilots are only here because they refused to give up. Dr. Geizler did not give up. We would have lost the Breach if he hadn't dared everything to drift. Our entire war effort, gentlemen, has succeeded because of those refusals to listen to common sense and stop."

"He has a good point," Raleigh nodded. "Foxtrot held Leatherback long enough for us to get there. We'd've lost Striker without her."

"Pentecost would not give up on her." Mako's words were quiet but there was no question that the ghost of Stacker Pentecost solidified when she gave him life through her words. "I have tested Mr. Temura. I believe that he is a strong candidate for Foxtrot and for Margret. If he is willing, he should be drift compatible."

Temura nodded. "I'm willing."

"There's no telling what she's remembering." Herc spoke for the first time. "You'll be dropping into the middle of her memories. All of them. Every one. Margret has suffered the death of two pilots. Her childhood is as traumatic as Mako's and you know how their first time went."

"I won't chase rabbits." Temura bristled at the assumption. Tension rose at the table with Chuck rising defensively to his feet.

"Gentlemen…"

"You've not been active yet. Its easy to say on this side of the drift."

"Try me." Temura shot back at Chuck. "Top marks in every simulation. I'm not going to run screaming at the sight of a kaiju. I've studied every reel we have on Shrike and Okami-oni."

"And Honenuki. Christmarch. Vedeguun. Correrio." Herc rattled off the list. "She's not a green pilot. Tango Caribe fought in plenty of skirmishes before decommissioning."

Nguyen looked up suddenly as though something had occurred to him. His eyes wore dark circles underneath them from the long hours. "Have we catalogued Oblivion Bay?"

Ironside sighed heavily. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe we forgot."

The Colonel rose unsteadily to his feet. He surveyed the table and nodded his head once as though he'd decided something. "Then an experienced pilot should drift with her." He focused on one man. "I've been told that you have sparred with O'Donnell and that, in all likelihood, you are drift compatible with her."

"It's my job," Temura was on his feet now, angry and defensive as his opportunity to pilot the only functioning jaeger drew away from him. "I'm ready for this. Let me have it. When a second Breach opens, I'm her co-pilot. Unless it doesn't work in which case, I'm first up for Foxtrot."

Ironside shook his head. "I've put off her decommissioning. But she's still not eligible for new pilots. I won't lose any more men."

With slow steps, Nguyen headed for the door. Each movement placed his weight carefully on his weak foot. "Temura, you are not out of the running. But chancing the drift when you've not had a chance to spar with the recipient could put you at risk. The Marshall and I were the only Mark I team that never worked with anyone else. By the time we tried, we were too old to teach new tricks to. Herc is the best choice. He's had three co-pilots and it's to my understanding that he has sparred with O'Donnell and that they are compatible."

Herc's face dropped open in shock. "Sir." He tried.

"That's my decision," Nguyen finished. "Now someone get the goddamned door for me so I can fly to Oblivion Bay and see what the junkyard has in it."

Ironside's hand was a heavy thump on the tabletop. "There's your chance, Doctor. The only one we're going to give permission for."

* * *

Teddy Zhang set up the drifting station, a real rig and not the junk contrived set-up that Newt used to drift with the kaiju. The doctor hummed to himself as he worked. The pons system was tied into his computer with the option to cut the drift if things went badly. The equipment was predictable but Zhang was less than convinced with Hercules Hanson. The blond-haired man sat with his head in his hands, the bulldog crouched at his feet, and his son in the room with Margret. The younger Hansen appeared to speak to her but the distance obscured whatever he said.

"Are you ready?"

Herc's eyes closed and he nodded his head slowly. Despite his 43 years and command opportunity, he suddenly seemed out of his element.

"There is considerable risk. No one would blame you if you chose against this." Zhang held the neural links in his hand. "That may be a lie. But life is rarely blameless."

"Have you ever drifted, doctor?"

"Once. I found it a surreal experience." Zhang shrugged. "There was little in my childhood to compel me to remain within the memories."

"When two people drift, they look through each other's eyes." Herc answered as he moved to the reclined chair and removed his jacket. His forearms flexed under the rolled up sleeves of his shirt as he folded it carefully and set it to the side. "And all the lies we tell each other to keep the world straight…"

"My impression was that you and Margret were acquaintances only."

"We should have been more." Herc said the words flatly but he was startled to see that Chuck was standing there listening.

"No worries." The young man handed Herc a sheet of paper. It was scores and at the bottom a single demarcation by Ironside. DC. Drift Compatible. Except this matched Chuck with Joseph Temura. "I know you think I'm getting a short deal from this, but I'm good."

"Why?" Herc couldn't help the word spill out.

"You made me a great pilot, but I'm still your shadow and I act like an ass when I'm in it. Ironside agreed. It's my turn to move on, old man. And Temura has some of your bad habits, leading with his dominant hand, but I'll beat him into shape. We're a good fit."

Herc grinned. "Watch yourself. He'll figure out pretty quick that you cross your feet on the defense."

"Gentlemen, as soon as you're ready. I'm seeing a drop in activity. She's just about to shift dream cycles."

Chuck faced his father directly. "I'm growing up. Now its time for you to quit using me as an excuse."

Herc pulled on the headset and leaned back into the bed. Max snuffled at his feet and settled over the top of them as though to hold his master in place. After a few seconds Chuck placed his hand on the dog's back and they waited.

"Initiating handshake," Zhang grinned at the words. "In three…two…one…."

* * *

_Memories broke open. Herc felt them spin wide and away from him as he fell into the drift. Easy moments of happiness, the day that Chuck was born and how glorious it felt to become a father. Middling moments, Chuck breaking his leg in a fall from the back of his truck and Angela's anger at his momentary lapse of attention. The boy had been fearless, even then. And then the bad moments came, Scissure's attack. The helicopter he piloted dashing between the destruction of the kaiju as it wrecked its way through the city. Fear. He'd been made of fear piloting through the ruins. Ice in his stomach. The school children were huddled in the basement. Relief at the sight of his son but then the crushing knowledge of how many children there were. Herc had taken as many as he could, hoping that another chopper would follow him in. Chuck had asked for his mother as Herc flew the overburdened chopper outside of the city._ _He couldn't answer. The devastation was almost total. Jets were making no dent in Scissure's hide and the ground assault couldn't bring enough artillery to bear to hold the kaiju in place._

_How could he answer his son when the order to detonate was given?_

_He released the memory, let it slip away, like the day had slipped away from him._

_This was unlike any handshake he'd ever entered. His memories receded but he could not find Margret. He fought against the sensation that it was not working and let everything wash away from him, let her drift take him where it would go._

_His eyes opened in Foxtrot's conn._

_Margret finished accepting the drift between Debey and Ygor. Her two mechanics were tightly tied into Foxtrot, but she was the last component the beast needed to wake._

_She climbed into the harness and felt the mag locks grip her boots in place as the back plate lowered into position. Foxtrot waited around her and she steeled her mind for what was coming next. _

_"If I should die this very moment, I wouldn't fear. For I've never known life without being here." She whispered the words and let her mind sink into the drift._

_Except the memory was different. She realized, for the first time, that it was memory and not the moment. This time she was not alone. She raised her eyes and saw Herc as he stared back at her. He wore Foxtrot colors and they slid into a handshake._

_"Oh," she whispered as so many moments became clear._

_"Oh," he echoed. _

_"Foxtrot powering up." Came the female tenor who voiced the heavy jeager. For the first time, the emotionless voice had something else contained within it. "Welcome Ranger O'Donnell. Welcome Ranger Hansen. Awaiting combat instructions."_

* * *

There was a knock at the door but Newt was too bleary-eyed to answer it in time. He knocked over two bottles of vodka pilfered from Mess Night and spun the airlock in the wrong direction three times before he managed to spin it loose.

There was no one there.

"Flubber-goddamn-bleagh…." Words escaped him as he realized that he was not wearing his glasses either. Or pants. A passing mechanic gave him a funny look. "What?" Newt challenged back until he realized that he'd forgotten underwear in addition to the pants.

His bare toes hit an envelope and he picked it up and retreated back to the mess of his quarters. All of his manic energy squelched by the lockdown, he redressed the most immediate concerns and sat bleary-eyed to pick the glue apart and retrieve the interior contents.

His hangover dissipated as he realized what was in the pictures.

He was sober, as quickly as he could be under the circumstances. The papers were marked with the Shinja temple and seemed to be written by someone named Han Lue. Han knew Newt, knew what he'd done, and his experiences with Hannibal Chau. Han knew the Shatterdome's set-up and Newt's subsequent fall from grace. If he'd been capable of it, he should have noticed that Han Lue knew things about the PPDC that he should not. If he'd cared, he would have noticed the warning lights that tried to spark in his brain.

Instead, Newt only saw one thing.

It was what looked like an egg sac caught in a fishing trawler. Each egg would have been the size of a large Volkswagon. The sac strained at the trawler's lifting capacity and drawing it far towards the water. Newt couldn't tell what was in the eggs from the poor picture quality but they could only be one thing.

There was a date and a time printed below the picture with two words: _Come alone_. Two hours in the future. Newt clutched the papers to his chest and then looked at them again. The Breach was sealed, but they'd left something behind. A chance to prove himself to the steely gaze of Ironside and Nguyen, a way back in their graces.

There were kaiju on this side of the Breach.

* * *

_Margret's mantra - borrowed from the lyrics to Lamb's Gorecki _


	14. Chapter 14: One More Question

**Chapter 14: One More Question**

**+Kaiju attack Days 16-40**

* * *

**_World News Network: Live Feed_**

_Voice (Off screen) "Initiating drift…3 …2 …1."_

The camera closes in on Foxtrot as she rocks in her moorings. She takes a single step forward, then another. Her helmeted visor angles down at one hand and then at the other as though she sees them for the first time. The dip of orange catches the sunlight coming in from the open bay doors and the giant jaeger turns towards them. She emerges from the bay and looks up towards the sun. A flash of light catches the camera lens and flares as Foxtrot steps forward again and blots out the sun.

The view switches to another camera near her feet and pans slowly, steadily up every foot of her seven story height.

Foxtrot hesitates there for another long moment before she strides off the end of the dock.

The camera viewpoint flips again to the drones and dummy targets as Foxtrot runs through a training exercise unnecessary for either of her pilots, but essential for the world watching them.

* * *

**_World News Network: Interview 3_**

The reporter, fairly well known outside of his normal BBC duties leads the interview. He is a short man with shoulder length brown hair and a casual air that made him the leading contender for this show. The PPDC's show of strength is heavily orchestrated by the coastal countries still struggling with armed revolt in the streets. Flags of the countries and their commitments to PPDC defense coffers scroll underneath the interviewer as he greets his interviewees.

Herc and Margret sit across from him in separate chairs. Herc is self-assured and casual but the camera catches him checking on Margret with brief glances. Margret is more tightly wound and sits at the edge of her chair as though the call will come momentarily. They wear the same leather jackets but Foxtrot has a new logo and the curling stylus of her tail is made of flames.

"It's been a whirlwind few weeks for the two of you. Hansen as Marshall and O'Donnell as Field Marshall. Now you're teamed together with a unique arrangement in Foxtrot. Four pilots in a jaeger previously thought unsalvageable. How did you come up with the idea?"

"Ygor Dmitrivich solved the problem." Margret answers sharply. Although the camera and make-up hides the darkest circles under her eyes, there is still a faint shadow to her cheeks that recalld the time she spent in the coma.

"Your co-pilot. He and Asam Debey declined our interview, but the four of you function as a team."

Herc nods. "Proving Foxtrot needed more brains on board has re-opened plans for another Mark VI jaeger. Prime Minister Woljamiri has stated that he'd like Australia to lead construction of the replacement for Striker Eureka but using Foxtrot's technology."

"And you're assuming that better technology will buffer the disadvantage for the remaining Rangers?" The pilots bristles as the journalist focuses tightly on them. "Mako Mori and Raleigh Beckett's jaeger was a Mark III. Gipsy Danger fought off two Class 4 kaijus and a Class 5 when…"

"We now know that the kaiju were learning our fighting styles. All pilots have begun training to expand their repertoire."

"And changed partners." The interview focuses completely on Margret and the camera zooms in tight on the planes of her face. "We're often told that the drift is more intimate than any marriage, are there any requirements for mixed sex teams other than sexual compatibility? Our viewers would like to know how you determine that."

* * *

**_World News Network: Filmed Encounter_**

Something broke across the floor as Ironside rose to his feet. His normally thunderous expression was livid with rage. "My pilot comes out of a goddamned coma from piloting her jaeger solo and your big expose is whether she's sleeping with her new partner?!"

The journalist tries not to flinch as Ironside comes around the edge of the desk, but does anyway. A brief glance seems as though he might ask them to stop filming but doesn't. The Marshall's bulk allows him to tower over the smaller man but there is the ice in his gravelly voice as his tone drops and menace emerges. "If a second Breach opens, those two Rangers are what stand between you and annihilation. And you want to know whether they fuck?"

"Yes," squeaks the journalist as his voice cracks unintentionally.

"Get out."

* * *

**_World News Network: Interview 12_**

"I went into the drift expecting to die. So did Marshall Pentecost. We were piloting a nuclear payload into the depths of the ocean and maybe the wormhole." Chuck speaks slowly and carefully as though he wants to make sure that every word is special. But it also seems that each one pains him. "But in the fight, with the kaiju, the new kaiju bred for water fights and the water environment, that was when I realized I _was_ going to die."

He takes a deep breath. "The most we could hope for was to destroy the kaiju and let Gipsy run on the Breach. We were damaged already and Pentecost activated the trigger. I thanked him for the honor."

This is the first time the interviewer has interrupted. "Marshall Pentecost was a famed war hero. Why didn't he go for a lifepod?"

"It was a death sentence." Chuck answers. "He had radiation poisoning from the Mark Is but by the time he started his treatment it was too late. Hell the doctors complain about my four day delay but I should live. Might even be able to have kids one day. Pentecost didn't have that. He was already at the end of his death sentence."

"So you initiated the lifepod?"

His head shakes in an emphatic 'No' as his eyes begin to well with liquid. "I'd said my goodbyes to Dad and Max. I'd accepted it. Even had a few minutes to realize that it was really the end. Pentecost triggered the lifepod at the same moment he activated the bomb. The blast caught me only three seconds after I hit the water and it threw me. I blacked out from the g forces so I don't remember that. Mostly when I hit the surface and couldn't activate any of the emergency transponders. That would have been two maybe three hours after the blast. I felt sick to my stomach but when no one came I cracked the emergency rations and tried to figure out where the hell I was."

"You thought the PPDC had abandoned you?"

"No," the honesty in his eyes terrifies those watching more than anything. "I thought there was no one else left."

* * *

**_World News Network: Jaeger Graveyards Educational Segment_**

The chaos of the Shatterdome is nothing compared to the hive of activity in Oblivion Bay and its counterpart Fólkvangr in western Norway. Cameras follow teams of engineers as they structurally test every component of the remaining jaeger corpses and systematically strip them for recycling or repair. It leads a strange process not unlike the slaughter of an animal as kneecaps and visor pieces can simultaneously be tagged as unusable and sent to the large smelting assemblies at the far ends of the compounds. Salvageable components are loaded onto the heavy transport ships with destinations marked and already prepared with other heavy metals and raw materials to build the newest world defenses.

Marshall Nguyen is an unrelenting figure amongst the metallic remnants. He limps determinedly between the teams, demanding answers even when the teams cannot reach a consensus. Frequently his appearance redoubles efforts until the collapse of an older mechanic restructures the work day around rest.

They use a War Clock which is a constant reminder of both the success of the PPDC and what it is terrified of.

When will the Precursors attack again?

* * *

**_World News Network: Dr. Jaspar Schoenfeld_**

Much of Dr. Schoenfeld's work is considered top secret by world governments not wanting to leak any aspect of their new defense plan. He was requested to lead the new PPDC science team. Their mission is to discover new ways to fight the kaiju and stop the opening of another breach. His team is enormous, as they've drawn together a stable of scientists from numerous specialties.

They're based in Seoul with some of the most cutting edge technology turned over to the multi-national teams. Invitations are elite and unusual with some big names not making the cut and others a shoe-in for inclusion. They're also tasked to develop exciting changes to the jaeger program, including a whispered about possibility of canine-human jaeger teams in smaller wolf-like jaegers. Said to be a brainchild of rebel-scientist Teddy Zhang, he has quickly risen to be Schoenfeld's right hand man. His extensive research in drift technology and its ramifications makes him one of the most knowledgeable men in the world and the most controversial.

Not surprisingly, Hermann Gottlieb has chosen to remain at the Hong Kong Shatterdome to support the only active jaeger in the PPDC. As for Newton Geizler, since his disappearance from the Shatterdome, no one has any indication of whether Geizler has hidden for his own safety, or the safety of the world.

* * *

**_Illegal News Feed: Not proven valid _**

"This is Naomi Sokolov at a hidden Shinja temple." The dark haired woman skips around the prostate forms of two praying believers and descends deeper into a temple that is dark and gets darker as she keeps moving. The floors are rough-packed and dirt as though the believers that throng the openings and interior maw of the huge cavern scooped it out hand by hand. She whispers this as she continues on down the sloping walkway and sees it open again in front of her.

Someone has built what appears to be a huge statue of a kaiju, but unlike a real kaiju this one has a rounded bulb of a belly that sprawls out over its feet and into a widening base on the floor. A gross combination of a fertility statue and the kaiju action figures that children carry into battle with small plastic jaegers.

A man lays on the ground in front of the statue while two elderly tattoo artists, their own skin more ink than unmarked canvas, poke with tiny swift attacks at his back. They acknowledge her presence but do not stop the careful application of dye from tiny wooden bowls and then their repeated hammering into his skin.

"Dr. Geizler?" Naomi asks with a soft voice. "Naomi Sokolov. I was told that you'd come to be in seclusion, but I was hoping to talk to you about your drift with Otachi and her infant."

"I knew someone would find me." Newt answers and raises one hand. The tattooists immediately stop and gather their bowls. "But I'm not ready for you yet."

He rises to his knees and for the first time she sees the magnificence that is Slattern coming into focus over the entirety of his back with trailing tentacles down his buttocks and thighs. Geizler doesn't appear to have groomed himself in two months and has a thickening beard under a shock of wild hair. His glasses are gone as well as he looks as Naomi with appraisal. His chest is not yet tattooed, but his arms crawl with bright colors of other kaiju.

"Words don't describe what you're asking."

"I understand that there's a disconnect between talking about the drift and experiencing it, but I'd like to hear your perspective. There are people who want to know if communication might be the better option than war." She stutters a little bit as he draws close to her. "You're a hard man to find."

"I like you," he says softly. "And you might as well see what we've found. It will change the world soon enough."

"What you've found?" She asks the question as Newt grabs a hold of her tightly. Other supplicants emerge from the shadows to surround them. The camera man jumps distractingly and flips the camera on his shoulder. He runs. The camera lens catches the crowd descending on the screaming journalist. They drag her towards the opening kaiju belly as Naomi's screams reverberate in the hall. Of those who grab at him, shaking the camera too much to tell what is inside that horrible statue, he manages to force his way free.

He does not stop running for a long time after he gains the open air.


	15. Chapter 15: No Time for Ever After

**Chapter 15: No Time for Ever After**

**+66 days Kaiju attack**

* * *

The cafeteria was full, the surge of funding and activity brought in more manpower than they'd seen in almost two years. Margret knew that Ygor spent most of his time running into old buddies. It was why she tried to sneak through the crowd to grab their lunches. Well-wishers still caught her for a moment, just a chance to say what an honor it was. Raleigh complained about the same thing in Detroit so she knew it was universal. Saving the world gave them a veneer of special that was about as comfortable as a real coat of lacquer. Hero worship only worked as long as you were winning.

Tenisha Moandu had a tray piled high with their sandwich boxes and Margret took the first section gratefully. "You know," the round Nigerian grandmother said. "You could bottle that shit,celebrity. Sell it to the masses. There is worse people who've gotten rich that way."

Margret shook her head with an emphatic denial. "They already tried. Not sure what I'd smell like in perfume form but it's not sandalwood with a hint of black cherry."

"That don't even make sense." Tenisha giggled. "Damn, never mind. You sing?"

"God, no. Don't make me." She leaned in close and balanced the boxes against her hip and tried to balance the second group against the first. "I'd rather sell pictures of Joseph to his fans. I heard they're offering almost a thousand dollars for personalized photos."

"Personalized?" Tenisha seemed almost shocked by the thought and tossed a spatula behind her. It flew perfectly into a pan of dirty dishes that needed to be sent below for scrubbing. "What the hell does that mean?"

"That I take off my pants." Joseph relieved her of the second set. He winked broadly at Tenisha as the woman still managed to blush. "Only for some."

"Oh get on," Tenisha waved at both of them to leave. "Or your casual flirting will get you a taker that you might not want. I've been married four times and none of those men were leaving until they got carried out in a box. Young man or not, Joseph Temura, you've got nothing on a real woman."

"Did Tenisha just admit to fucking her husbands to death?" Joseph whispered as they hurried out of the cafeteria.

"I think so."

"That's kinda sexy."

Margret found that she couldn't laugh and carry the high stack at the same time. It took them a few minutes longer to make it back to the briefing room and she was amazed by the sheer velocity of the people around them. Despite the training missions and hew own new proof of life, she'd spent the last twenty-five days focused on getting her strength back and recalibrating to a new co-pilot. The moment she'd realized that Herc was in the drift, the moment their minds had met – she'd forgotten what it was like. She saw herself through his eyes. Felt his memory and his emotions. And knew, finally, that night he had done the math and realized that the young pilot was closer to his son's age than his own. It never had anything to do with her scars.

That memory made her cheeks warm but they were already back at the lounge and dropping off the lunches. They were still missing Mako and Raleigh in the States but they'd been joined by a female pair from South Africa, Blaer de Bruin and Goitsemedime Tau who went by Deema. The nation had repeatedly tried to send male candidates but the only ones who could bridge the continuing divides were women. Five female candidate pairs advanced but Ironside had picked de Bruin and Tau after they ran three consecutive cycles through the training modules for almost eighteen hours of drift. Both women were strong and tall at six feet each, despite being Afrikans and Bataung, the two moved alike and were rarely apart.

Ygor and Debrey accepted the boxes with their names on them with a grin. Tenisha always gave them extra pie despite Nguyen's requests to treat the pilots the same. Margret was almost certain that neither man had had to provide 'personalized' pictures which put them one over Temura.

Her hand brushed against Herc's as she handed him a box and neither withdrew from the contact.

"You know I've got money on this," deBruin said with her crisp almost brittle sounding accent. "And time is running out."

Margret grinned as Herc flushed instead. She threw a crumpled napkin towards the two women but hit neither. "Your fault for putting in a bet. I'm the only one who knows the right choice."

"You can't tango solo." Herc tossed back at her to the cackles of the other pilots. "I've got a stake in that too."

"Assuming," Chuck was no long as arrogant but there was still a confident nature to his voice. "That she'll have you. No guarantees that pilots have to sleep with each other."

"Speak for yourself," Joseph grumbled through an large bite of sandwich. "I like spooning with you at night."

The livid shade of red ran up and down Chuck's face as he choked on his lunch and then returned the ribbing by giving Joseph a defiant kiss. "Tell Mera that." He chortled as Joseph tried to wipe off the slobber he'd left behind.

Margret enjoyed it all. Her hair was shorter than it had ever been courtesy of an overzealous nurse who'd cut it against her shoulders for easier washing, but she didn't mind it. It felt ridiculous to notice that Herc liked it too, but she could see his perception of her in the drift. Yoshi held part of himself back in the drift, something that Chuck said he'd also felt with Pentecost. Pilots who restricted their personal moments to a tightly controlled realm of their minds. Herc was different. Although he watched the younger pilots and only occasionally spoke up, Margret was almost hyper aware of his presence in the room.

_When she woke up from the coma he'd been next to her. Margret frowned immediately._

_"What's wrong?" He'd asked her concerned. "Margret?"_

_Even without being told she could feel the strange sensation of being disconnected from the world. Her muscles didn't want to work where fatigue still soaked the fibers despite their inaction. And despite waking, she still felt the urge to sleep weigh heavily on her._

_"I didn't need saving." She told him, angry at the weakness in her body and the sense that she had failed. _

_"You…" he struggled to respond for a moment. Then his face softened and he leaned over her so that his beard tickled against the skin of her cheek as he said. "Let's call it payback for the first time you rescued me."_

_Her eyes welled with tears as she remembered how many times she'd taken Foxtrot into battle alone in the dream, and that last time when Foxtrot recognized two pilots instead of just the one._

_"Let's not make a habit of it then." And whatever his answer was was lost as Max jumped into the middle of her bed with an ungainly leap to get much delayed attention from his charge. _

"Mags."

She leaned towards him as Nguyen limped into the room for their briefing. Her head tilted toward him and despite their lack of an active drift connection, the echo seemed to strengthen when they sat together. She could sense his slight boredom, the satiety of a filling lunch and his pride in Chuck's growing maturity.

He almost smiled as she tried to ignore the other part of it.

"Briefing first." She whispered.

"Then the combat room." He finished.

Nguyen settled into a chair and sighed audibly at the sensation. He'd returned from Oblivion Bay a few hours earlier. "Good news," he told them. "With the salvaged parts, Tango Caribe should be active in about twenty minutes. We'll send you." He directed the comment to Joseph and Chuck. "Out to the training course as soon as systems checks are complete. Either tomorrow or the next day. And you," this to Blaer and Deema. "Will be up in Cherno Charlie before the next week's end. Heza wants to recondition the missile system with updated tech before he installs so that it can handle those new tzX12 missiles."

Both women grinned widely.

"And Mako and Raleigh will be back home sometime next week. The components are poured and the factory is going to begin shipping them here so that Mako's team can start the build…"

The rumble was distant but palpable. All of them moved to the edge of their seats except for Nguyen who got to his feet and hurried to the wall comm panel. His limp was almost undetectable as he overrode it with his speed. "What's going on?"

Static crackled back. He spun on them. "Foxtrot. Tango. Get to your jaegers."

Another rumble. And finally an alarm began to shrill through the corridors of the Shatterdome. Another followed on its heels and then another. Alarms shrieked through the darkness as they ran. Herc and Margret ran for Bay 13 with Ygor and Debrey on their heels. Both mechanics had been working out but they struggled to keep up with the fleeter pilots. Chuck and Joseph split off for Bay 5 at the first elevator.

Crews surged around them. Panicked personnel impeded their progress until Herc began to bark 'Make a hole! Pilots!" They still fought the tide of humanity turned back from the elevators and into the heavy wide stairwells that rang with cries of concern and the rapid patter of boots. They needed to go one floor up to cross over to their hub, but many of the crews were headed to either emergency quarters or their duty stations. Instead of being fluid controlled movement, it was surging chaos that spun around Margret as she tried to gain ground with Herc tight on her heels.

"Wait!" Someone screamed ahead of the crowd. It was too late. The airlock was already breached and water shot through the crack and sprayed over the crowd and down the stairs.

They were only a few feet away and spray drenched Margret as she grabbed the edge of the frame. Herc put his weight next to her and three other men joined them and then four more behind them as they set all their strength to fighting the surging water. Every inch was hard fought and more than once someone slipped as they lost their footing. Those behind them caught them and lifted them back to position but there were sobs of pain and relief as the heavy handles spun closed.

"Higher," Ygor yelled at them and Margret glanced up to see Debrey already on the next flight of stairs and gesturing to them.

They ran and as they made it into the higher hallway safely, the Shatterdome rumbled again. This was not momentary. It ran on and on under their feet as they sprinted down the long corridor. The floor lifted with a whump and it staggered the group.

"Just need an EMP." Debrey gasped as they saw the heavy bay doors come into view. "To make it feel…"

They ran through as the Shatterdome rocked again. Margret felt fear take root. Her eyes sought out the war clock but it remained staunchly counting forward. The breach was not open. How on earth could they be under attack if the breach remained closed?

Hermann Gottlieb waved down at them from the 8th floor walkway. He was braced against the strong support pipes that anchored the crane's higher arm in place but every shake seemed on the edge of dislodging him. "Kaiju!" His voice seemed tinny from that high. "We're under attack by kaiju!"

They rushed for the stairwells and then into the battle room. Fifteen minutes had passed. An eternity. The four stripped without thought of modesty and struggled to pull on their suits over salt water slick skin. Margret rubbed a stray t-shirt over her legs and waist and tossed it to Ygor to do the same. She fumbled her boots and dropped them as the Shatterdome _lurched_ sideways. Hermann fell in through the doorway as it happened but no one could spare a moment to lift him back up.

"Where are they coming from?" Herc demanded as he felt Margret snap his back-plate into position and tightened the bolts down. Their normal techs were nowhere in sight so she finished his and started on Debrey's while the dark-haired man held abnormally still. Although he and Ygor had technically seen combat, Ygor had admitted to Margret that his partner was still slightly terrified by the experience. He refused to back away from their mission, but the fear on his face was understandable as she squeezed his arm.

"Safest place for us is inside Foxtrot. Guaranteed."

"How can there be kaiju without a breach?"

"Mags, let me do you."

She stood still for Herc and he handed her a helmet as they started towards the bridge to Foxtrot's conn-pod. He brushed against her as he secured the last bolt and her eyes locked on his. They shared the worry together, but for a brief fleeting moment, then they tucked it away. It was Hermann's job to find out why, it was their job to take care of the kaiju.

The Shatterdome violently shifted again, and after a brief hesitation, began to shudder as it was dragged. The movement knocked them to their knees. They struggled up and half ran towards the conn-pod bridge.

"Hermann, run the station! Secure the door!" Margret turned around as she remembered him, there was no way he'd be stable by himself. She caught his shoulder and had him half way there when she realized that he'd lost his cane. He awkwardly maneuvered the last few feet by himself and turned to face her as the door closed between them. One hand raised gamely towards her as the Shatterdome pitched downward and water burst through the cracks of the bay doors and began to spray the interior with salt water.

"They're pulling us out to sea. Mags!" Herc was halfway across the bridge with Debrey next to him. "Come on!"

Margret paused as they tipped again. Foxtrot was still locked in her moorings and held firm but the bridge was not as secure and cracked along the connections to the main catwalk. Ygor ran into her as she halted and looked at the distance between them and Foxtrot.

There was no question where she needed to be. Water rushed into the bay at an increasing rate. It was already full of debris and vehicles that lifted off the floor under the wash of water. There were people down there as well, screaming as they were pulled into the crush, but she couldn't focus on them. Herc's eyes were locked on hers and she knew that when she asked him to say the words, they would be there.

"_Run, Ygor. Run like we have no choice_."

His face calmed even as the Shatterdome shook and pitched beneath them. Herc waited on the edge of the pod with one hand extended, Debrey already inside.

"_I am not a sprinter_." He grumbled to her. "_I am a goddamned mechanic_."

The Shatterdome screamed as metal tore and rent. Water exploded like fire and rushed at the jaeger and at the two sprinting figures at the top. There was no time. Mags and Ygor ran and ran and…


	16. Chapter 16: Rinse and Repeat

**Chapter 16: Rinse and Repeat**

**+20 minutes: Unconfirmed Kaiju attack **

**"Once more unto the breach, dear friends," - Henry V, Shakespeare**

* * *

The news network is unlabeled, the footage unconfirmed, but the world watches in horror as the tangle of tentacles and surging bodies drag the Shatterdome from its moorings and towards the open ocean. There are moments when it might be possible to estimate the number of kaiju wrapped around the heavy station. There are moments when it feels inconceivable that anything short of an act of God could move that much metal.

There are moments when the entire world is silent.

* * *

Margret felt his weight pull her down even as Herc tightened his grip. He yelled for Debrey to help him and she could not let go of him to be able to help Ygor. They'd hit the last foot of the bridge as it gave way. She'd made the leap a millisecond ahead of him but Ygor stumbled as the stability vanished. He'd missed the edge of the conn-pod doorway and made a frantic grab for safety that caught Margret even as Herc extended a hand to catch her.

"Don't let go!" She shouted to him over the waterfall of water that crashed through the doors. It was higher now, to Foxtrot's knees and still rising.

"_Not for my mother's borscht! Or all the money in the world! Motherfucker. What is going on?!_!"

"Quit shouting and pull!" Herc shouts from above them. "Ygor, you've got to climb!"

He tries to move his hand but the armor provides little traction and Margret can feel his weight bounce as the Shatterdome rocks under them.

"Ygor." Then Debrey is there and he and Herc pull the two of them into the conn-pod step by perilous step.

Every muscle in her abdomen aches with pain but she pushes Herc away and climbs into the harness as the others do the same. She closes the door and flips the comm with the Shatterdome live. "Are you there, Hermann?"

"I am." He answers. "The LOCCENT is still sending signals although we're on emergency power. Preliminary data suggests eight kaiju are attacking the Shatterdome."

"Eight?" Debrey whispers but they all hear him.

"There is no breach activity confirmed… but visual descriptions match what Raleigh and Mako remembered of the kaiju Slattern indicating the possibility that she left behind some sort of… offspring."

"Eight category Vs."

"Eight…"

"It could be worse." Herc snapped.

"How?" Snapped Ygor, although he looked embarrassed as Margret turned to look at him.

"Are we it?" She asks the question even though she doesn't want to know the answer if it's a bad one.

"Negative!" Hermann cheers a little over the comm line as though he's reading incoming data. "Tango is cutting out of her bay now, and Charlie is in the fight!"

Margret glanced at Herc and found that she was smiling. "I guess Charlie didn't feel like waiting for final repairs. Come on boys, it's time to use Foxtrot the way she was intended. Hermann, hang on. We're not getting a feed from LOCCENT so you're our angel in the tower. Foxtrot initiating drift…in 3…2…1."

She flipped the switch.

* * *

Foxtrot surged against the moorings, they did not disconnect and she glanced down at them frustrated, her waist submerged in the rushing water. She twisted in both directions before locating the heavy emergency release lever above her head. Both arms raised up and grabbed the action handle and charged it once, then twice, then three times. The pressurized hydraulic fluid forced open the moorings and she staggered forward as she was released.

The Shatterdome screamed as it was dragged inexorably towards the next submarine shelf. And then the drop.

Foxtrot was thrown against the far wall as the ground dropped out beneath them. Equipment battered her from the outside and the huge doors began to bow in as water rushed through the remaining gaps of air. Any human survivors… Foxtrot looked for them, but there was nothing she could do as water drenched her faceshield and they were submerged.

She planted her feet against the back wall and reached for the doors. It took three good pulls to yank the left door out of its floor track and widen the gap enough for the width of her shoulders. Bubbles burst through the new opening as the building tilted, one end hitting the ground first and then settling to the lower height.

The roof of the Shatterdome was almost a hundred feet below the waves and it looked like the carbonation in a soda can when first opened. Bubbles rose everywhere from unsecured corridors and bays. Trash, debris, and bodies floated free of it as it settled and when she turned the same littered the ocean behind the path.

The sleek forms of two kaiju headed toward Foxtrot. Both had the hammerhead skulls that were Slattern's unique marker yet they were not quite half the size. As they rounded on Foxtrot, it was more obvious that the hammerhead shape was reflected in the lower jaws as both gaped wide and issued some sort of underwater call. The only obvious difference between the two was a sheen to their leathery skin, obvious as they whipped in and out of the Shatterdome's massive floodlights that were still operational.

Foxtrot climbed onto the roof of the Shatterdome and the giant jaeger dropped her weight lower, ready.

She relayed guidance to Hermann in his tower and the two received codenames: Turq and Carmen. Calls came in from Charlie with her three: Salmon, Slate, and Sandy. And then finally Tango: Alice and Rosy.

Herc took over Foxtrot't mike to ask, "_What the hell color is Alice?_"

Despite the horrors around them, it gained a few muted laughs. But Foxtrot did not have time to linger. Turq and Carmen attacked. Even at half their mother's size, they were still almost 3000 tons, and would be chest-height on flat ground. In the water, they were swift. Their powerful front limbs dove out in front while the heavyset rear legs tucked in back and the three tails merged into one powerful propeller that aimed them at the jaeger.

Turq dove in first and Foxtrot did not move. 100 yards. 50 yards. It felt too late when Foxtrot side-stepped the attack and the kaiju bumped across her chestplate but was too late to get purchase. Her hand clamped down tight on the barbed tails and yanked Turq to a stop that made the kaiju scream out. She released its tail and it shot forward bleeding as Carmen rolled over Foxtrot in snapping fury. The heavy spikes sprang out of Foxtrot't greaves and she rolled with the red-sheened kaiju.

"_Missing one kaiju_." Hermann told them.

None of the three jaegers responded.

Foxtrot couldn't see any of the others in the dark water. Silt and debris clouded it to the point of opaqueness.

She punched Carmen in the head and raked her forearms over its body again and again, clouding the water with an additional coating of kaiju blue.

Turq leapt onto her shoulder and bit, snapping, at her neck and shoulder connections.

The newly installed spikes along her back frame impaled the kaiju as they shot up and through fifteen feet of its soft underbelly. It scrabbled to free itself and Foxtrot lifted up and slammed herself backwards onto the now-frantic kaiju. She didn't release Carmen though. One of Slattern's offspring was under her back and kicking and screaming to get away from the deepening pressure of the spikes, the other clutched tight in her hands as electricity discharged between them. Carmen squealed and howled as the heavy short sword unsheathed and Foxtrot disemboweled the kaiju.

Turq dragged itself free as she got to her feet and then hesitated as though it heard something else.

* * *

Hermann sat in the jumbled control pod of Bay 13 and stared out the window at what was looking in through the darkened glass. He fumbled with his glasses as his heavy breathing fogged them up. The radio chatter seemed to go silent even though he knew the score. Five kaiju down. Three jaegers undamaged and preparing to hunt down the remaining three, of whom they'd identified two. The last one, the unseen one, it was its eyes glaring in through the safety glass that had not shattered even with the watery depths.

"Foxtrot," he hated that his voice trembled.

"Almost finished." Came back Margret's voice. "This one is playing hard to get now."

"I can identify the third kaiju now."

Silence crackled over the radio. Hermann placed his hands flat on the control panel and told himself that he would be brave no matter what happened next. The kaiju shifted and the impact of its body on the glass made him jump anyway.

"Margret, I think you should call this one Regret." He imagined that Foxtrot hesitated at his words. "Because if I could do it again, I wouldn't have let Hansen have that dance."

He heard her voice as Regret rammed the glass again and spider-webbed it. The words were indistinct and seemed to be very far away.

He jumped again and tightened his hands down on the panel as he got back to his feet. Regret's attacks were stronger, more violent and he shouted with each barrage. "You do not not scare me! An adverse reaction is the body's natural defense mechanism, but you do not scare me! You do not scare me! I have seen your world and we are stronger than it and smarter than it! You do not….

* * *

The kaiju withdrew, dragging the corpses of their dead, to the dark depths of the ocean.


End file.
